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ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

By FREMONT RIDER 



*> 






' 



v» 



Professor William James 
Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. 



ARE THE 

DEAD ALIVE? 

The Problem of Physical Research that the 
World's Leading Scientists Are Trying to 
Solve, and the Progress They Have Made 

By FREMONT RIDER 



With Statements of their Personal Belief oy 

Sib Oliveb Lodge Andrew Lang 

Count Leo Tolstoi Sib William Cbookeb 

De. Cbsaee Lombeoso Dk. Chables Richbt 

De. V. Maxwell De. Filipfo Bottazzi 

Pbofessob William Baeeett Camille Flammabion 

William T. Stead Pbofessob William James 

And Others 



NEW YORK 
B. W. DODGE & COMPANY 

1909 



V 



\ 






Copyright, 1908-09, by 
THE DELINEATOR 

Copyright, 1909, by 
B. W. DODGE & COMPANY 

Registered at Stationers' Hall, London 

(All Rights Reserved) 
Printed in the United States of America 



1 MAY 

teu\s$ A 

L j / i z/ r a 



©0 MV &ttz 



PREFACE 

'Modern science is making great strides forward to- 
ward the solving of the problems which have ever most 
troubled humanity. Materially, we are coming into 
the enjoyment of many such solutions; spiritually, we 
are making but the first ragged breaches in a hitherto 
impregnable fortress. 

"In science, the great field for new discoveries" says 
Prof. William James, "is always the unclassified resid- 
uum. Round about the accredited and orderly facts 
of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud 
of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and 
irregular and seldom met with, which it always proves 
more easy to ignore than to attend to. . . . Only the 
born geniuses let themselves be worried and fascinated 
by these outstanding exceptions, and get no peace till 
they are brought within the fold. Your Galiloes, Gal- 
vanis, Fresnels, Purkinjes and Darwins are always get- 
ting confounded and troubled with insignificant 
things. . . ."* 

It is in this "dust-cloud of exceptional observations" 
■floating around the science of psychology that the stu- 
dents of psychical research have groped forward, blind- 
ly but carefidly, to an increasingly firm hold of a few 
fundamental facts. Ghosts, spirit rappings, materiali- 
zations, table levitations, trance speaking and writing, 

a James : The Will to Believe, pp. 299, 300. 
vii 



viii PEEFACE 

telepathy, clairvoyance—these formed no immediately 
attractive Held for scientific investigation. Every one 
of these subjects has been, and is, so permeated with 
fraud that with most of them there is the gravest doubt 
if so much as one genuine example ever occurred. Yet 
a few keen-eyed and clear-headed investigators have 
braved ridicule and indifference, and assert that they 
have found beneath a tremendous accretion of error 
a nucleus of truth. 

To present this nucleus as clearly as he may is the 
author's whole purpose here. He presents no theories, 
and takes no side, but tries only to give a selection of 
typical observed facts and certain unbiased inferences 
which may logically be drawn from them. If, having 
read the book, the reader is able to class him definitely 
as either a believer or a disbeliever in spiritualism, the 
author will have failed in his purpose; for he has en- 
deavored to give an impartial presentation of a sub- 
ject, tangled perhaps more than any other, with con- 
flicting theories and obscured with the grossest fraud 
and the most deep-rooted prejudice both pro and con. 

With no subject so much as with spiritualism would 
illiteracy and ignorance seem easily able to speak with 
authority; certainly in no other subject are usually 
clear-minded people carried to such childish credulity 
on the one hand, or absurdly indefensible denial on the 
other. 

Bui the phenomena which have converted to psychi- 
cism the greatest scientists of Europe, and are now 
creating widespread comment in every intelligent cen- 
ter of the globe, are not, we must remember, the credu- 
lous mingling of hysteria, darkness and fraud which 
we commonly associate with spiritualism; they are 



PKEFACE ix 

facts of cold daylight, things of the laboratory, 
weighed, measured, dissected, counted, by the exact 
methods of calculating, unsympathetic science. 

Of course, Crookes, the inventor of the Crookes 
tube; Curie, the discoverer of radium; Lombroso, the 
founder of the science of criminology; Sir Oliver 
Lodge, the eminent biologist; Morselli, the psycholo- 
gist, and their several hundred brother scientists, may 
be very much mistaken in what they say they have dis- 
covered. That, the author will not pretend to decide; 
but surely, what they consider zvorthy of credence on 
such a vital subject is at least worthy of our serious 
consideration. 

The past year has seen an important renaissance of 
interest in psychical research. But even in the flood 
of spiritualistic books making their appearance, there 
would seem to be need of a book making an attempt, 
not to add to, but to sum up past achievement. When 
these articles, in a much abbreviated form, first ap- 
peared in The Delineator, under the same caption, Are 
the Dead Alive? they called forth a flood of letters 
from their readers. Indeed, no subject introduced 
recently by that magazine aroused so much earnest 
comment, both of approval and condemnation, from so 
many varied points of view. 

Among the hundreds of letters received were reports 
of personal experiences; if not corroborative, at least 
very interesting and significant. And there were re- 
quests, too — pathetic appeals for help from some re- 
cently bereaved. Could the writer tell them how, in- 
deed, they might know their dead were alive? Could 
he show them how to communicate with them? Could 
he "recommend a thoroly reliable medium"? No, alas! 



x PKEFACE 

he could do none of these things; and the wisest re- 
searcher in psychical science will tell you, if he be hon- 
est, that he cannot. 

For we are, as yet, learning the veriest rudiments of 
metapsychics, and no man yet even knows what or 
when we may know. All the author would do is to 
light up a little the way already traversed. 



nfJujA^xrwdC^j^^ 



Glen Tor-on-the-Hudson, 
Dec. 3, 1908. 



v 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

One of the most remarkable pictures of levitation 

ever published Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

An instantaneous photograph, taken by M. de 
Fontenay, of table levitation produced by the 
medium, Auguste Politi " 12 

Sir William Crookes " 22 

Photograph of a table levitation with the medium 

Eusapia Paladino " 50 

Camille Flammarion " 55 

Daniel Dunglas Home, greatest of all so-called 

"physical" mediums " 61 

Sir Oliver Lodge " 72 

Eusapia Paladino " 75 

Plaster casts of impressions in clay, produced at a 

distance by an unknown force " 80 

Lecture-room of the Societe d'Etudes Psychiques 

at Milan " 88 

The lonely Isle Roubaud in the Mediterranean 
where Eusapia was investigated by Charles 
■Richet " 88 

Dr. Pio Foa, Professor of Pathologic Anatomy, 

University of Turin " 98 

Colonel Albert de Rochas, propounder of the 

theory of the "astral double" " 113 

Dr. Cesar Lombroso, Alienist Professor of Psy- 
chiatry, University of Turin " 120 

xi 



xii LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

The famous Bourne case of dual personality " 136 

The "Watseka Wonder," the most famous 

recorded case of "obsession" " 142 

Frederic W. H. Myers, formulator of the hypoth- 
esis of the "subliminal self" " 147 

The famous Bertha Huse case of clairvoyance. ... " 157 

Impression of two clenched hands in clay, made at 

a distance by Eusapia Paladino " 164 

William T. Stead ,. " 171 

Alleged genuine "spirit photograph" " 178 - 

Fraudulent "spirit photograph" " 178 

Alleged photograph of an ancient, taken in Chi- 
cago by Mr. Blackwell " 188 

Mr. Frank Podmore " 198 

Photographs showing the progression of an al- 
leged "materialization" " 212 

A typical table levitation with Eusapia Paladino " 240 

Dr. V. Maxwell, an enthusiastic psychical 

researcher " 258- 

A typical example of "spirit writing" : 

I. The medium's normal handwriting " 266 

II. Automatic writing by the medium ..... 276 

III. Automatic writing later in the seance.. " 286. 

Mrs. Leonora Piper, of Arlington, Mass " 291 

Dr. Richard Hodgson " 305 , 

Professor William James of Harvard University " 312 

Handwriting of the medium, Mile. Smith, to show 
the difference between normal and alleged 

"controlled" writing " 324 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGB 

Chap. I. Introduction 1-21 

Introduction, 1 — Is fraud an explanation of all spiritual- 
istic phenomena? 3 — The strange phenomena com- 
prised under the heading "Psychical Research," 6 — 
The phenomena observed by Sir William Crookes, 9— All 
professional spiritualistic phenomena are permeated with 
fraud, 14 — Has science been neglecting a rich field of in- 
quiry? 19 — 

"To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen 
the gates of knowledge is to bring reproach on science 
. . ." — Sir William Crookes, 22. 

Chap. II. The Physical Phenomena of 

Spiritualism 2 3S4 

Mere prestidigitation cannot explain all alleged "spirit 
manifestations," 25 — The notable spiritualistic investiga- 
tion of the London Dialectical Society, 27 — "Spirit" slate- 
writing, 32 — The famous Zollner phenomena, 37 — Rap- 
pings : the Fox Sisters, 40 — Are the rappings genuine ? 43 
— Table-tipping, 47 — The researches of De Gasparin: 
What causes table-tipping? 50 — 

"That the soul survives the body I have not the shadow 
of a doubt . . ." — Camille Flammarion, 55. 

Chap. III. The Mediumship of D. D. Home 61-71 

Home's levitations, 63 — "Elongation": the heat phenom- 
ena, 67 — 

"I am convinced of the persistence of human existence 
beyond bodily death . . ." — Sir Oliver Lodge, 72. 
xiii 



xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PACT 

Chap. IV. Eusapia Paladino: The Italian 

Medium 73-98 

The beginning of Eusapia's mediumistic career, 75 — The 
downfall of Eusapia in England, 82 — A new series of 
sittings in Genoa, 85 — The first Turin seances, 91 — The 
second Turin seances, 95 — 

"I am convinced that after death man does not perish 
entirely . . ." — Botaszi, 99. 

Chap. V. The Later Mediumship of Eusapia 

Paladino 101-19 

The startling materializations produced at Naples, 106 — Is 
this psychic energy a form of radio-activity? in — Eusa- 
pia's manifestations and the problem of the future life, 
116— 

"Spiritualistic phenomena are authentic . . ." — Cesar 
Lombroso, 120. 

Chap. VI. Obsession and Dual Personality 

123-46 

The hypothesis of the "subliminal self," 127 — Cases of 
dual personality, 134 — The remarkable case of Ansel 
Bourne, 136 — The famous case of the "Watseka Wonder," 
139— 

"Our records prove the persistence of the spirit life 
. . ." — Frederic W. H. Myers, 147. 

Chap. VII. Clairvoyance and Clairaudience 

149-70 

Clairvoyance, 152 — The celebrated case of Bertha Huse, 
157 — Clairaudience, 161 — What is clairvoyance? 163 — Pre- 
cognition, or prophecy, 167 — 

"I do not believe the dead depart . . ." — William T. 
Stead, 171. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xv 

PAGfl 

Chap. VIII. Ghosts 173-97 

"Spirit photography," 177 — The projection of the "astral 
body"? 184 — Apparitions of the dead, 187 — The Morton 
"haunting," 191 — 

"Survival is improbable . . ." — Charles Richet, 198. 
Chap. IX. What Are Ghosts ? — "Material- 
izations" 201-20 

Not all "ghosts" are subjective, 205 — Do animals see 
apparitions? 207 — The famous "Katie King" materializa- 
tion, 217 — 

"The dead have never really died . . ." — Alfred Rus- 
sell Wallace, 221. 

Chap. X. Telepathy 224-49 

Fraudulent telepathic phenomena, 227 — Spontaneous tel- 
epathy, 232 — The proof of telepathy, 237 — Telepathic 
hypnosis and suggestion, 245 — What is telepathy? 248 — 
"We deal only with presumption and prejudices ..." 
— Andrew Lang, 250. 

Chap. XI. Premonitions 252-7 

What is the explanation of premonitions? 256 — 

"We are at the dawn of a new religion . . ." — V. 
Maxwell, 258. 

Chap. XII. Mediumship 261-87 

The phenomena of "automatism," 266 — Various phases of 
motor automatism, 268 — Rules for conducting mediumistic 
experiments, 272 — Typical mediumistic phenomena, 274 — 
Apparently supernormal knowledge displayed in medium- 
istic communications, 279 — The mediumship of William 
Stainton Moses, 282 — 

"No experimental proof of survival after death will ever 
reach an absolutely conclusive scientific demonstration 
* . ." — Professor William Barrett, 288. 



xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chap. XIII. The Piper Case 291-31 1 

The early phases of the Piper case, 295 — Mrs. Piper is 
investigated in England, 299 — The appearance of the Pel- 
ham "control," 304 — Pelham is displaced by the "imperator 
controls," 307 — 

"Psychical Research has bridged the chasm . . ." — 
Professor William James, 312. 

Chap. XIV. Telepathy vs. Spiritualism." 315-40 

The "telepathic hypothesis," 320 — Arguments for the tele- 
pathic hypothesis, 324 — Objections to the telepathic hypo- 
thesis, 326 — Other arguments for spiritualism, 331 — "The 
dramatic play of personality" in mediumistic communica- 
tion, 333— 

"I feel, I know with certitude that in dying I shall be 
happy . . ." — Count Tolstoi, 341. 

Chap. XV. Conclusion 343-5° 

Spiritualism and the Bible, 345 — The difficulty of knowing 
of the "Other World," 347 — The evidence of future happi- 
ness, 350. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 



CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 

For countless centuries man has been puzzled by 
certain occurrences which have not fitted into his es- 
tablished order of things. Ever since the beginning, 
since man groped forward into a clear belief in the 
future life, there has existed, for instance, a concurrent 
belief that the "spirits" of the dead in "the other world" 
sometimes came back to earth, sometimes communi- 
cated with those they had left behind here. But 
"ghosts" were something that modern science, as it 
grew up in the past three centuries, could not explain ; 
so science cheerfully denied that they existed. 

Then there were other queer occurrences — you and I 
nay have had them — a friend, perhaps, on the other side 
of the world, suddenly dies, and we wake up in the 
middle of the night in a cold sweat with an inexplicable 
realization of our friend's decease. We call such a case 
a "strange coincidence." At some other time we are 
inexplicably warned of a danger suddenly imminent to 
ourselves, and we call that warning a "presentiment." 
Even two-score years ago there were some people who 
said that these "coincidences" and "presentiments" were 
1 



2 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

examples of a hitherto unsuspected power that they 
called telepathy or "thought transference." But mod- 
ern science had no place in its scheme of things for 
telepathy, so again it cheerfully denied that the alleged 
instances really occurred. 

About the middle of the last century there appeared 
a new class of phenomena, in some respects even more 
bewilderingly contrary to the existing laws of science. 
Mysterious rappings were heard, with no one to make 
them, and musical instruments played when no 
"natural" explanation seemed possible. Solid articles, 
especially tables, danced violently around and occasion- 
ally rose of their own accord into the air and floated 
there. Rarely, persons were "levitated" in the same 
way. Under favorable conditions forms were said to 
appear and disappear instantaneously. For these and 
other similar wonderful occurrences science had no 
explanation; they were contrary to all her established 
laws. So science denied that they ever occurred ; and 
those who witnessed them, in default of any other 
explanation, ascribed them to the work of "spirits" 
of the dead. 

Of course, the little genuine phenomena, admitting 
that there were some genuine, during this last half-cen- 
tury were imitated by a host of charlatans, self-styled 
"mediums," seeking notoriety and fortune at the expense 
of an easily duped public. As a consequence, spiritual- 
ism fell into such disrepute that for some time reputable 
scientists declined even to investigate its pretensions. 
Yet the more thoughtful, as the century drew near its 
close, argued that where so much smoke was there 
must be a little fire. Thousands of people were claim- 
ing that they had seen tables tipped and levitated, that 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 3 

they were daily receiving messages from friends who 
had died. Ghosts were part of the tradition of every 
race on earth. Scores of respectable men and women, 
contrary to their expectation and better judgment, ad- 
mitted the reception of telepathic messages. Here were 
facts that science, in the opinion of some of its leaders, 
could no longer ignore. 

Is Fraud an Explanation of all Spiritualistic Phenomena? 

The first cry that the average man makes in the 
presence of alleged supernatural phenomena is that of 
fraud, and on the whole he is abundantly justified. 
The history of mediumship is one long, dishearten- 
ing record of fraud and exposure. That nearly all 
alleged spiritualistic phenomena are fraudulent there 
isn't the slightest doubt. That every "medium" who 
in the daily papers advertises "advice" for sale is an 
arrant rascal may be taken as a foregone conclusion. 
That some of the most noted mediums, after months 
and sometimes years of scientific cooperation, have 
turned out to be impostors, is true. 

But if we immediately dismiss in disgust the whole 
subject we are gravely in danger of the opposite error. \ 
When Dr. Thomson Jay Hudson, author of The Law of \ 
Psychic Phenomena, himself an opponent of the ex- 
treme spiritualistic position and an ethical writer of 
weight, says: "The man who denies the phenomena 
of spiritualism to-day is not entitled to be called a 
skeptic; he is simply ignorant"; and when the great 
English scientist, Alfred Russel Wallace, the co- 
discoverer with Darwin of evolution, recently said, "No 
more evidence is needed to prove spiritualism, for no 
accepted fact in science has a greater or stronger 



4i ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

array of proof in its behalf," does it not behoove the 
man in the street at least to read before scoffing ? 

Sir William Crookes, once president of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science, one of 
the three or four greatest English scientists of the nine- 
teenth century, the discoverer of the element thallium, 
and inventor of the Crookes tube which made possible 
the X-ray, studied various phases of mediumship for 
five years with scientific care and thoroness. At the 
end of that time he announced his conversion to spirit- 
ualism. 

Sir Oliver Lodge, an admitted authority in biology 
and metaphysics, after many years of investigation, 
asserts his unqualified belief in the reality of telepathy, 
clairvoyance and similar so-called "occult" phenomena. 
Professor Richet, of the University of Paris, and Pro- 
fessor William James, of Harvard, perhaps the most 
eminent psychologists of Europe and America re- 
spectively, have devoted a large part of their lives to 
the study of mediumship. 

These men are not tyros in scientific research, or 
liable to be hoodwinked by fraud or biased by personal 
feeling; they are among the leaders in the intellectual 
life of their respective countries. Nor do they stand 
alone , by any means. The (British) Society for 
Psychical Research, for thirty years the recognized 
leader in the investigation of psychical phenomena, 
was founded in 1882 for the express purpose of investi- 
gating "all that large group of phenomena outside the 
boundaries of orthodox science." This included, of 
course, clairvoyance, rappings, apparitions, and trance 
writing and speaking, as well as the various allied 
phenomena of hypnotism. The society owed its in- 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 5 

ception to Professor W. F. Barrett, of Dublin, to whose 
agitation its founding was chiefly due, and to two 
close friends, Frederic W. H. Myers and Professor 
Sidgwick, of Cambridge. Frederic Myers was a stu- 
dent of psychology of such depth and breadth that 
his monumental work, Human Personality, may be 
said to have revolutionized our conceptions of psychol- 
ogy. Professor Sidgwick was one of the greatest 
philosophical thinkers and writers of the century. 

From the beginning the investigations of the society 
proceeded with scientific caution. It numbered among 
its members the leaders of the intellectual world. 
Among its presidents have been Arthur James Bal- 
four, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, and 
Professor Balfour Stewart, the eminent logician. 

Yet this society, after unmasking and discarding a 
tremendous accretion of fraud and error, finds enough 
left to state officially that the existence of ghosts and 
the occurrence of telepathy at least are scientifically 
proved. And the Society for Psychical Research is 
but a type of similar societies in France, America* and 
Italy which have rallied around them the greatest in- 
vestigators in their respective countries. The men 
mentioned are but a few of those who are professed be- 
lievers in the reality of spiritualistic phenomena. 
Hudson, Hodgson and Stead in England ; Dessoir in 
Germany ; Hyslop, Funk and Sidis in America ; Janet, 
Richet, Ochorowicz, Flammarion, Du Prel, De Gaspa- 
rin, Maxwell in France; and Lombroso, the great 
criminologist, Foa and Morselli in Italy — the list of 
names is a long one. 

In fact, there are now in all the world but one or two 
scientists of the first rank who deny the actual proba- 



6 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

bility of the future life; while a large proportion claim 
that this life has been actually proved by the occurring 
phenomena of spiritualism. 

You are probably surprised at this; you probably 
never suspected the slightest favorable consensus of 
scientific opinion on this matter. All your life you 
have believed in a future life, simply because you have 
— believed; but all your life, perhaps, too, you have 
hoped and sought in vain for proof, tangible, visible, 
scientific proof, that your loved ones who had gone 
before were alive, that your faith might be more than 
a faith, might be an actual knowledge. Now these 
men assert that they have found this proof. What is 
it they have found ? Their scholarly attainments give 
their discoveries weight; and you and I at least want 
to know. 

In the light of the reports of these eminent scientists 
who have investigated spiritualism most thoroly, you 
and I have neither the right — nor the desire prob- 
ably — to cast aside the whole subject without at least 
a cursory investigation on our own account. After 
personal examination of the facts and a weighing of 
the conclusions derived from them, personal judg- 
ment may be reached which, even if it be adverse, is 
founded, not on contemptuous ignorance, but on un- 
biased acquaintance with the facts. 

The Strange Phenomena Comprised Under the Heading 
"Psychical Research" 

Putting aside for the moment all question of a 
future life, the psychical phenomena which we propose 
to investigate are claimed by the men who have stud- 
ied them most to prove the existence of very wonder- 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 7 

ful abilities, powers which we are accustomed to think 
utterly unworthy of credence, and existing, if at all, 
only in the imagination or perhaps in a vague "other 
world." It is asserted, as we have seen, that there 
are, for example, really such things as: 

Clairvoyance, the ability to see independent of the 
eyes, the material organs of sight, to see spontane- 
ously, for example, what is within a locked drawer or 
what is happening a thousand miles away. 

Clairaudience, a similar ability of hearing inde- 
pendent of the material organs of hearing. 

Telepathy, the ability to communicate thought in- 
dependent of all physical senses, transcending space, 
giving the power to read the thoughts of another, be he 
a few feet or miles away. 

Prevision, the ability to transcend time. This may 
be either retro cognition, that is, the power of knowing 
what happened in the past, or, more rarely, precogni- 
tion, or prophecy, of seeing take place what has never 
happened, but in the future will occur. 

Telekinesis, the ability to affect physical objects 
without contact, as, for example, moving chairs or 
other objects when at a distance from them. 

Self-projection, the ability of a man to make him- 
self visible at a distance. 

These are indeed wonderful things, beside which 
the greatest discoveries of modern science fade into 
comparative insignificance. That is, if they are true, 
you say. Well, that is exactly what we shall try to 
find out; but with one qualification. Our purpose, 
you will remember, is to answer an even larger ques- 
tion, "Are the dead alive?" and we shall consider all 



8 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

psychic phenomena from the standpoint of their rela- 
tion to that question. 

We shall very soon discover that the phenomena 
divide themselves into two general classes. We have 
table-tippings, rappings, materializations, knot-tying, 
and other "cabinet manifestations" which do not give 
alleged "messages" from the "other world," and, in- 
deed, may claim no connection with it. These "phys- 
ical phenomena," therefore, however interesting in 
themselves, are irrelevant to the main point at issue 
and may be treated by us at much less length. 

We have, on the other hand, table-tippings, rap- 
pings and materializations with "messages." These, 
together with apparitions, auditions, automatisms (that 
is, automatic trance speaking and writing through a 
medium), are of value, because they purport to be 
communications from discarnate (deceased) "spirits." 
You will see at once, then, that the question of the 
genuineness of these alleged spiritual phenomena di- 
vides itself into two : 

i . — Do tables tip spontaneously ? Do human beings 
and other material bodies rise and float in the air? 
Does writing occur of its own accord between sealed 
slates, etc. — that is, do these things, considered sim- 
ply as physical events, ever genuinely happen? 

2. — Is the source of the alleged messages in the 
"other world"? All these wonderful things, in other 
words, may or may not happen; even having proved, 
if we can, that they do happen, as actual, visible, 
physical phenomena, we have still to prove their spir- 
itual origin. 

The first question, as for our purposes the less im- 
portant, we shall consider briefly, preliminary to the 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 9 

second. To undertake the solution of the latter at 
all advisedly, we should know something about the 
allied phenomena of clairvoyance, telepathy and sec- 
ondary personality and possession (the "possessed by 
demons" of the Bible), A large field this, evidently, 
and one of absorbing interest; what shall we find 
therein ? 

The Phenomena Observed by Sir William Crookes 

Before beginning any detailed consideration of the 
phenomena mentioned by the various writers quoted, 
it may be well to note a few of the more famous his- 
torical instances — one or two of the striking and typical 
landmarks, as it were, of the country we are about to 
traverse. 

To give quickly an idea of the extent and impor- 
tance of well-authenticated psychic phenomena, I can 
do no better than to review very briefly Crookes' 
famous Report on the Investigation of Phenomena 
Called Spiritual. Weighing on the one hand Sir Will- 
iam Crookes' position as one of the foremost scientists 
of Great Britain, and on the other the extraordinary 
nature of the phenomena he describes, we may well 
understand the amazed outcry that arose upon the 
publication of his report. 

Sir William Crookes was in middle life when he 
made the researches, carried on over a period of several 
years, the results of which are embodied in his Report. 
Lest it be thought that his maturer judgment repudiated 
the conclusions reached in those earlier days, I shall 
quote his own statement thereon, delivered as part of 
his President's Address before the British Association 
for the Advancement of Science, in 1898. 



10 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

"No incident in my scientific career is more widely 
known than the part I took many years ago in certain 
psychic researches. Thirty years have passed since I 
published an account of experiments tending to show 
that outside our scientific knowledge there exists a 
Force exercised by intelligence differing from the ordi- 
nary intelligence common to mortals. This fact in 
my life is, of course, well understood by those who 
honored me with the invitation to become your presi- 
dent. Perhaps among my audience some may feel 
curious as to whether I shall speak out or be silent. 
I elect to speak, altho briefly. To ignore the sub- 
ject would be an act of cowardice — an act of cowardice 
I feel no temptation to commit. I have nothing to 
retract. I adhere to my already published statements. 
Indeed, I might add much thereto." 

He had said with truth : "There appear to be few 
instances of meetings held for the express purpose of 
getting the phenomena under test conditions, in the 
presence of persons properly qualified by scientific 
training to weigh and adjust the value of the evidence 
which might present itself." He realized in advance 
the storm that would follow the announcement of the 
results of his inquiry, and his preliminary words are 
a model of judicious rebuttal. 

"The phenomena I am prepared to attest are so 
extraordinary that even now, on recalling the details 
of what I witnessed, there is an antagonism in my 
mind between reason, which pronounces it to be scien- 
tifically impossible, and the consciousness that my 
senses, both of touch and sight — and these corrobo- 
rated, as they were, by the senses of all who were 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? IX 

present — are not lying witnesses when they testify 
against my preconceptions." 

With these few words of introduction, Sir William 
proceeds to classify simply and relate with the ut- 
most brevity a series of the most marvelous phenom- 
ena that — if bona fide — it ever befell mortal man to 
witness. 

He states, for instance, that he had observed "the 
movement of heavy bodies with contact, but without 
mechanical exertion"; that he had heard during his 
experiments raps and other noises varying from "deli- 
cate ticks as with the point of a pin," to "a cascade of 
sharp sounds as from an induction-coil in full work" 
and "detonations in the air" ; that he had seen "move- 
ments of heavy bodies when at a distance from the 
medium"; that he had watched "a chair move slowly 
up to the table from a far corner when all were watch- 
ing it" ; that he had repeatedly witnessed "the rising 
of tables and chairs off the ground without contact with 
any person" ; and even "the levitation of human be- 
ings"; that he had seen "luminous appearances," not 
once, but many times, and under the most varied forms ; 
that once "in the light" he had seen "a luminous cloud 
hover over a heliotrope on a side table, break a sprig 
off, and carry the sprig to a lady" ; and "on some occa- 
sions a similar luminous cloud visibly condense to the 
form of a hand and carry small objects about"; that 
there had been several times "appearances of hands, 
either self-luminous or visible by ordinary light." He 
tells how once "a beautifully formed small hand rose 
up from an opening in a dining-table and gave me a 
flower" ; and he adds : 

"I have more than once seen, first, an object move, 



12 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

then a luminous cloud appear to form about it, and, 
lastly, the cloud condense into shape and become a 
perfectly formed hand. At this stage the hand is 
visible to all present. It is not always a mere form, 
but sometimes appears perfectly life-like and graceful, 
the fingers moving and the flesh apparently as human 
as that of any in the room. At the wrist or arm it 
becomes hazy, and fades off into a luminous cloud. 
I have retained one of these hands in my own, firmly 
resolved not to let it escape. There was no struggle 
or effort made to get loose, but it gradually seemed to 
resolve itself into vapor, and faded in that manner from 
my grasp." 

These are facts, of course, which seem utterly be- 
yond belief, yet the evidence which Sir William Crookes 
brings up in their support is imposing. 

In answer to the immediate accusation of trickery, 
we are told that the occurrences took place in the 
writer's "own house, in the light, and with only private 
friends present besides the medium," and they hap- 
pened, not once, but scores and hundreds of times, ob- 
served by many witnesses, under every test condition 
that expert scientific knowledge and trained detective 
ingenuity could devise. 

Against the accusation of some kind of a wholesale 
self-hypnotization of the whole company, the writer 
contends : 

"The supposition that there is a sort of mania or 
delusion which suddenly attacks a whole roomful of 
intelligent persons who are quite sane elsewhere, and 
that they all concur, to the minutest particulars, in 
the details of the occurrences of which they suppose 








An Instantaneous Photograph, Taken by M. de Fontenay, of 
Table Levitation Produced by the Medium, Auguste Politi 



It is noteworthy that no scientist who has investigated instances 
of levitation at first hand now denies the reality of the phenomena. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 13 

themselves to be witnesses, seems to my mind more 
incredible than even the facts they attest." 

But there is stronger evidence. Sir William Crookes 
did not rely alone upon human eyes and touch, only 
too fallible as these often are. The amount of force 
was measured with a dynamometer ; the loss of weight 
of levitated bodies registered on specially prepared 
scales ; the inexplicable cold rush of air which preceded 
or accompanied the more startling phenomena "lowered 
a thermometer several degrees." Dynamometers, scales, 
thermometers cannot be hypnotized! 

The entire report is of absorbing interest, and the 
more important parts of it will be considered at greater 
detail later. The purpose here is simply to show that 
the occurrence of phenomena of a most astounding 
character is asserted soberly and in the most emphatic 
terms by men of the very highest scientific reputation. 

One more incident might be quoted, however, as 
an example, as Sir William Crookes says, of those 
"special instances which seem to point to the agency 
of an exterior intelligence." 

"During a seance with Mr. Home, a small lath, 
which I have before mentioned, moved across the table 
to me, in the light, and delivered a message to me by 
tapping my hand, I repeating the alphabet, and the 
lath tapping me at the right letters. The other end 
of the lath was resting on the table, some distance 
from Mr. Home's hands. 

"The taps were so sharp and clear, and the lath was 
evidently so well under control of the invisible power 
which was governing its movements, that I said : 'Can 
the intelligence governing the motion of this lath 
change the character of the movements and give me 



14 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

a telegraphic message through the Morse alphabet 
by taps on my hand?' (I have every reason to believe 
that the Morse code was quite unknown to any other 
person present, and it was only imperfectly known to 
me.) Immediately I said this, the character of the 
taps changed and the message was continued in the 
way I had requested. The letters were given too 
rapidly for me to do more than catch a word here and 
there, and consequently I lost the message; but I 
heard sufficient to convince me that there was a good 
Morse operator on the other end of the line, wherever 
that might be." 

All Professional Spiritualistic Phenomena Are Permeated With 
Fraud 

We have already noted that the first cry that the 
average man makes in the presence of alleged spiritual- 
istic phenomena is that of fraud ; and that on the whole 
he is only too well justified. The record of profes- 
sional mediumship is a disheartening one. The Fox 
sisters, who started the spiritualistic furore in this 
country in the early '4o's, confessed in after life that 
their "spirit" rappings were made by movements of 
the knee joints. Eusapia Paladino, most famous of 
all "physical mediums," was detected by the committee 
of the Society for Psychical Research in the most 
transparent fraud. The pretensions of Mme. Bla- 
f vatsky, founder of the cult known as the Theosophical 
J Society, with thousands of adherents, were utterly 
| riddled by Dr. Richard Hodgson, that sleuth keen- 
« eyed in detecting the shady weaknesses of mediums. 
Slade, who completely mystified Zollner and other 
savants of Germany, met a much-merited Waterloo at 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? l5 

the hands of the Seybert Commission of the University 
of Pennsylvania. 

In short, M. Flammarion, the eminent French as- 
tronomer and psychologist, says : "During - a period of 
more than forty years I believe that I have received 
at my home nearly all of them — men and women of 
divers nationalities and from every quarter of the 
globe. One may lay it down as a principle that all 
professional mediums cheat." 

The statement of J. N. Maskelyne, thoroly fa- 
miliar with all phases of mediumship as he was, is 
definite and unequivocal. "There does not exist, and 
there never has existed, a professional medium of any 
note who has not been convicted of trickery or fraud." 
"The net result of the investigations conducted by 
the Society for Psychical Research," says another 
writer recently, "was to produce the conviction that 
no results obtained thru professional mediums were 
to be trusted, so long as the conditions rendered fraud 
possible; and, further, that practically all professional 
mediums are frauds !" In short, the history of medium- 
ship is one continuous disheartening record of fraud. 

But if, as was said before, we in disgust dismiss the 
whole subject, we are gravely in danger of committing 
an opposite error. 

It is unfortunately true that the scientist is not the 
best observer or critic of psychic phenomena. Mother 
Nature, who works by invariable rule and never lies, 
however much she hides, does not begin to require that 
alertness, detective skill and hard common sense which 
the investigator who is contesting the wiles of a crafty 
charlatan must have. As Mr. Bruce says : 

"Experience has demonstrated that even the best 



16 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

trained observers fail to perceive all that transpires 
in the seance room, and that, consequently, the quick- 
witted medium of fraudulent tendencies has ample 
opportunity to effect his triumphs by trick and device. 
Conclusive proof of this was afforded by the late S. J. 
Davey, a member of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search, who, after a little practice, succeeded in dupli- 
cating the most sensational performances of the 'slate- 
writing' medium, Eglinton. So successful was he 
that the English spiritists denounced him as a renegade 
medium. But he frankly operated thruout on the 
conjurer's principle that the hand is quicker than the 
eye." 1 

But we have testimony from other men, investiga- 
tors of a different stamp. Mr. Hereward Carrington, 
an expert prestidigitator himself, after a lifelong study 
of fraudulent spintualistic phenomena, says: 

"There may be much fraud in modern spiritualism ; 
in fact, I am disposed to believe that fully ninety- 
eight per cent, of the phenomena, both mental and 
physical, are fraudulently produced; but a careful 
study of the evidence, contemporary and historic, has 
convinced me that there must have been some genuine 
phenomena at the commencement of this movement, 
in order that the first mediums may have copied them 
by fraudulent means, and that a certain percentage 
of the phenomena occurring to-day is genuine. A 
counterfeit implies a genuine, and a shammer some- 
thing to sham." 

M. Flammarion, quoted above, adds that he unques- 
tionably believes that, tho all professional mediums 



'Bruce: Riddle of Personality, pp. 109-112. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 17 

sometimes cheat, "they do not always cheat; and they 
possess real, undeniable psychic power." 1 

The author of The Revelations of a Spirit Medium, 
a. man who, as Mr. Carrington says, ". . . pro- 
duced the phenomena that converted hundreds to the 
belief, and who knows the disgusting details of the 
frauds practiced from A to Z, stated . . . that he 
himself was 'more spiritualist than anything else,' and 
advised his readers to go on investigating, for 'you 
will find in the chaff that is so plentiful some good 
grains.' " 2 

And yet this same writer had made this sweeping 
statement: "His own career and the fact that he has 
met no other professional medium, male or female, in 
his long experience and extensive travels, who were 
not 'crooked,' leads him to the conclusion that from 
the professional you are to expect nothing genuine." 
"Of all the mediums he (the author) has met in 
eighteen years, and that means a great many, in all 
phases, he has never met one that was not sailing the 
very same description of craft as himself. Every one; 
no exception." 

Alfred Russell Wallace declares that the facts ob- 
served in the history of spiritualism "are incontest- 
able"; and Dr. Elliotson, long a determined opponent 
of spiritualism, said finally : "I am now quite satisfied 
of the reality of the phenomena." 3 

Mr. Frank Podmore, at the conclusion of his monu- 
mental and scholarly attack on the whole spiritualist 



^lammarlon : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 3. 
3 Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 338. 
'Wallace: Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, p. 99. 



18 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

position, sounds a note of warning against an indis- 
criminate denial of all psychic phenomena. 

In other words, here, as elsewhere in human expe- 
rience, we must "prove (test) all things" and "hold 
fast to that which is good." We must remember that 
D. D. Home and Mrs. Piper, whose performances are 
in every respect the most wonderful of all, have never 
been detected in the slightest suspicion of fraud. And 
they were for many years under the severest scrutiny 
of investigators trained for that very work. All Mr. 
Carrington's shrewd observation and analysis, laying 
bare the thousand clever devices with which unscrupu- 
lous mediums have hoodwinked credulous humanity, 
but make more startlingly conclusive the slender 
section in the back of his book that he believes are 
"Genuine Phenomena." 

In his conclusion he states his position with clear- 
ness: "While sounding a timely warning ... by 
thus calling the public attention to the methods of 
trickery at present in vogue, I do not wish it to be 
understood that I thereby relegate the whole of the 
evidence for the supernormal to the waste-basket. That 
is precisely what I do not wish to do or lead others 
to do. It is because I believe that there do exist cer- 
tain phenomena, the explanations for which have not 
yet been found, . . . that I think it necessary to 
distinguish those phenomena from the fraudulent 'mar- 
vels' so commonly produced, and which are the only 
spiritualistic phenomena with which the public is ac- 
quainted. When these shall have been cleared away, 
. . . the real, systematic, scientific study of psychic 
phenomena will have begun." 1 

Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 415-6. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 19 

It is doubly unfortunate that scientific men, as a 
body, have affected a lofty disdain of the whole 
psychic field, blind to the fact that they are missing 
an exceptional opportunity for opening up a virgin 
territory of fabulous value to mankind. 

Has Science Been Neglecting a Rich Field of Inquiry? 

Mr. Myers, in a refreshingly sane criticism of the 
conservative stand, points out the "ever-growing dis- 
like felt by the votaries of advanced and established 
sciences to the rude and approximate work which has 
been needed in the infancy of every science," adding: 
"Psychical research is the left wing of Experimental 
Psychology. It may be argued that present methods 
of research are rather rash skirmishings; but surely 
there is an opposite danger ... in the temptation 
to cling too exclusively to the safe methods of sciences 
exacter than it [psychology] can in reality be. . . . 
Men who insist on electric lamps along their road never 
reach Central Africa. . . ." 

In a masterly defense of his own position, Sir Will- 
iam Crookes said: "My object in thus placing on 
record the results of a very remarkable series of ex- 
periments is to present such a problem, which, ac- 
cording to Sir William Thomson, 'Science is bound 
by the everlasting law of honor to face fearlessly.' It 
will not do merely to deny its existence or try to sneer 
it down. Remember, I hazard no hypothesis or theory 
whatever; I merely vouch for certain facts, my only 
object being — the truth. Doubt, but do not deny ; point 
out, by the severest criticism, what are considered fal- 
lacies in my experimental tests, and suggest more con- 
clusive trials ; but do not let us hastily call our senses 



20 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

lying witnesses merely because they testify against 
preconceptions. I say to my critics, Try the experi- 
ments; investigate with care and patience as I have 
done. If, having examined, you discover imposture 
or delusion, proclaim it and say how it was done. But, 
if you find it be a fact, avow it fearlessly, as 'by the 
everlasting law of honor' you are bound to do." 1 

In the introduction to his own study, M. Flammarion 
takes an incontrovertible stand: "We are inclined to 
smile at everything that relates to the marvelous, to 
tales of enchantment, the extravagances of occultism, 
the mysteries of magic. This arises from a reason- 
able prudence. But it does not go far enough. To 
deny and prejudge a phenomenon has never proved 
anything. The truth of almost every fact which con- 
stitutes the sum of . the positive sciences of our day 
has been denied. What we ought to do is to admit 
no unverified statement, to apply to every subject of 
study, no matter what, the experimental method, with- 
out any preconceived idea whatever, either for or 
against." 2 

The trouble is that your man of science objects to 
the conditions imposed by the medium, the darkened 
room for example, and the constrained position, which 
often prevents anything like genuine investigation. He 
points out that there is a peculiar, mysterious atmos- 
phere in a seance room which works on the emotions 
and unsettles the judgment. He declines to become 
involved in any study wherein gross fraud has been 
and is so prevalent; and he denies the existence of 



Quoted in Flammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 316. 
'Ibid., p. 1. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 21 

any phenomena not reproducible (as are the phenomena 
of chemistry, physics and biology) at will. 

Of course, this position is both selfish and scien- 
tifically indefensible. We have no more right to in- 
sist that a "materialization" must take place in daylight 
than to insist that a photographic plate must be de- 
veloped in daylight. We know nothing as yet regard- 
ing the laws of psychic phenomena. We cannot dic- 
tate hozv they should happen ; we cannot reproduce 
them at will, simply because we don't know enough 
about them ; and to take such a position is as absurd as 
that of the savant of medieval times would have been 
who denied the existence of lightning because he could 
not manufacture it when he pleased. 

To such an astounding and unequivocal statement 
as that of Professor Challis, Plumierian professor of 
astronomy at Cambridge University, mere scoffing is, 
it seems to me, no really adequate answer. 

"I have been unable to resist the large amount of 
testimony to such facts [spiritualism] which has come 
from many independent sources and from a vast num- 
ber of witnesses. ... In short, the testimony has 
been so abundant and consentaneous, that either the 
facts must be admitted to be such as are reported, or 
the possibility of certifying facts by human testimony 
must be given up." 



"TO STOP SHORT IN ANY RESEARCH THAT BIDS FAIR 

TO WIDEN THE GATES OF KNOWLEDGE IS 

TO BRING REPROACH ON SCIENCE." 

"No incident in my scientific career is more widely known 
than the part I took, many years ago, in certain psychical 
researches. Thirty years have passed since I published an ac- 
count of experiments tending to show that outside our scientific 
knowledge there exists a Force exercised by intelligence differ- 
ing from the ordinary intelligence common to mortals. To 
stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates 
of knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse criti- 
cism, is to bring reproach on science. There is nothing for 
the investigator to do but to go straight on, 'to explore up and 
down, inch by inch, with the taper of his reason; to follow 
the light wherever it may lead, even should it at times re- 
semble a will-o'-the-wisp.' 

********* 

"That a hitherto unrecognized form of force — whether it is 
called psychical force or X-force is of little consequence — is 
involved in these occurrences (spiritual phenomena) is not with 
me a matter of opinion, but of absolute knowledge. The 
nature of the force, or the cause which immediately excites 
its activity, forms a subject on which I do not at present feel 
competent to form an opinion." 

— Sir William Crookes. 




Sir William Crookes 

Perhaps the foremost English scientist of the latter nineteenth 
century, formerly president of the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science. His record of mediumistic phenomena personally 
observed is astounding. 



CHAPTER II 

THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF SPIRIT- 
UALISM 

We have already remarked how difficult it is for 
the average man, even one trained in scientific obser- 
vation, to discover the fraudulent devices of a tricky 
medium with years of sleight-of-hand experience. You 
may watch the exhibitions of Hermann and Kellar, 
knowing they are clever tricks, yet utterly unable to 
explain how the result is obtained. Kellar gave ex- | 
hibitions of slate-writing before the Seybert Commis- 
sion which completely mystified them, yet he announced 
beforehand that the phenomena were entirely trickery. 
Dr. Hyslop notes that often the seances of mediums are 
"much poorer exhibitions than those of the most ordi- 
nary prestidigitator." Yet they manage to deceive their 
spectators. The amateur investigator without the least 
experience confronts a man who for years has made 
a lifework of producing illusion, who knows every 
variety of trap-door, secret catch, slide, dummy appa- 
ratus, concealed wires, etc., and every method of using 
them. 

Probably ninety-eight per cent, of the "materializa- 
tions" seen in the seance room are not even an ade- 
quate illusion; that is, are such flimsy makeshifts that 
it seems as if no normal human being could be de- 
ceived. They are compounded, in fact, of a very 
natural and pitiful longing to see, a clever suggestion 



m ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

from the medium that they are seen, and a very slight 
"ghost" framework on which both feelings are hung. 

But against the accusation that all his "physical" 
phenomena are fraudulent, the spiritualist brings up 
one very strong kind of testimony, that of the pres- 
tidigitators themselves. After a seance with Alexis, 
the clairvoyant medium, Robert Houdin, probably the 
greatest of all modern magicians, wrote : 

"I have, therefore, returned from this seance as 
astonished as it is possible to be, and persuaded that it 
is utterly impossible that chance or skill could ever 
produce effects so wonderful." 1 

Harry Kellar, whose stage performances are known 
to thousands in this country, said in a letter to the 
Indian Daily News (Calcutta, 1882), regarding the 
mediumistic performances of Mr. Eglinton : 

"It is needless to say I went as a skeptic, but I must 
own that I have come away utterly unable to explain 
by any natural means the phenomena that I witnessed 
on Tuesday evening. . . . After a most stringent 
trial and strict scrutiny of these wonderful experiences, 
I can arrive at no other conclusion than that there 
was no trace of trickery in any form, nor was there in 
the room any mechanism or machinery by which could 
be produced the phenomena which had taken place. 
The ordinary mode by which Maskelyne and other 
conjurers imitate levitation . . . could not pos- 
sibly be done in the room in which we were assem- 
bled." 2 



1<£ Tout a fait impossible que le hazard ou l'adresse puisse 
jamais produire des effets aussi marveilleux." Quoted in 
Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 53. 

2 Quoted in Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 52. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 25 

These statements, while interesting, are in no way 
conclusive, however. We must remember that Bella- 
chini, the noted conjurer of the Prussian court, gave 
Slade a similar endorsement ; x and that the trickery of 
this very Eglinton who puzzled Kellar had been al- 
ready uncovered in England. 2 In other words, even 
the best magicians may not know all the tricks of their 
own trade, and may be mystified just as possibly, even 
if not as easily, as ordinary folk. 

But, on the other hand, in fairness to the spiritualist, 
it must be admitted that Kellar states that the alleged 
"explanations" of Eglinton's performances would not 
cover all of them, and Bellachini asserts positively of 
Slade : "I have not in the slightest degree found any- 
thing to be produced by means of prestidigitative mani- 
festations or by mechanical apparatus; . . . any 
explanation of the experiments which took place under 
the circumstances and conditions then obtaining by any 
reference to prestidigitation is absolutely impossible." 3 

It is evident then that in this direction we reach but 
very little solid footing either way. 

Mere Prestidigitation Cannot Explain All Alleged "Spirit 
Manifestations" 

But any intelligent examination of spiritualistic phe- 
nomena soon brings us to instances which mere trick- 
ery cannot explain. 

No hypothesis of prestidigitation, no matter how 
cleverly worked out, can, for instance, explain the table- 



*Funk : The Widow's Mite, p. 54. 

2 S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 4, p. 355. 

s Quoted in Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 54. 



26 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

tipping incident mentioned by Professor Morgan. A 
skeptical friend present at a seance was loudly scoffing 
at the so-called spirits, and daring them to display their 
powers. Spontaneously, without contact, the heavy 
table around which the experimenters were standing 
broke away from them and pinned the skeptic against 
the wall with such force that he cried for mercy. 

"A medium," as Sir William Crookes says in his 
famous report, cannot, by trickery, ". . . while 
seated in one part of the room with a number of per- 
sons keenly watching him, . . . make an accor- 
dion play in my own hand when I hold it keys down- 
ward, or cause the same accordion to float about the 
room playing all the time. He cannot introduce ma- 
chinery which will wave window-curtains or pull up 
Venetian blinds eight feet off, tie a knot in a hand- 
kerchief and place it in a far corner of the room, sound 
notes on a distant piano, cause a card-plate to float 
about the room, raise a water-bottle and tumbler from 
the table, make a coral necklace rise on end, cause a 
fan to move about and fan the company, or set in 
motion a pendulum when enclosed in a glass case 
firmly cemented to the wall." 

Trickery does not explain the case noted of the 
medium Meurice by Dr. Maxwell. 

"On one corner there is a statuette in porcelain . . . 
five inches high. M. Meurice told me he was going 
to make this statuette move. I stood near him, with 
my hand on his back ; I stooped down and looked fixed- 
ly and narrowly at the statuette during the whole oper- 
ation. M. Meurice proceeded exactly as in the pre- 
ceding experiments, and when his hands — joined to- 
gether at the finger-tips — were at a distance of six 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 27 

inches from the statuette, the latter swayed, bent slow- 
ly forward, and fell over. I affirm most positively 
that there was no hair or thread or normal link of 
any kind whatsoever between the statuette and the 
medium's hands." 1 

Trickery does not explain the remarkable series of 
experiments carried on in 1870 by the Committee of 
the London Dialectical Society. 

The Notable Spiritualistic Investigation of the London 
Dialectical Society 

The Dialectical Society was an association of schol- 
ars and scientists which had been founded two years 
before with Sir John Lubbock as president. The com- 
mittee "to investigate alleged spiritual manifestations" 
consisted of twenty-seven members, among them Al- 
fred Russell Wallace, Varley, the eminent practical 
electrician, and Professor Morgan, the president of 
the Mathematical Society. 

The remarkable nature of the phenomena observed 
by the various sub-committees into which, for prac- 
tical working purposes, the larger committee resolved 
itself may be judged by the fact that the Report states 
that the following propositions "appeared to be es- 
tablished" : 

"1. That sounds of a varied character, apparently 
proceeding from articles of furniture, the floor and 
walls of the room (the vibrations accompanying which 
sounds are often distinctly perceptible to the touch) 
occur without being produced by muscular action or 
mechanical contrivance. 



Maxwell : Metapsychical Phenomena, p. 323. 



28 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

"2. That movements of heavy bodies take place 
without mechanical contrivance of any kind or ade- 
quate exertion of muscular force by the persons pres- 
ent, and frequently without contact or connection with 
any person. 

"3. That these sounds and movements often occur at 
the times and in the manner asked for by persons 
present, and, by means of a simple code of signals, 
answer questions and spell out coherent communica- 
tions. 

"4. That the circumstances under which the phe- 
nomena occur are variable, the most prominent fact 
being that the presence of certain persons seems neces- 
sary to their occurrence, and that of others generally 
adverse. But this difference does not appear to de- 
pend upon any belief or disbelief concerning the phe- 
nomena. 

"That oral and written evidence received by your 
committee not only testifies to phenomena of the same 
nature as those witnessed by the sub-committees, but 
to others of a more varied and extraordinary character. 

"This evidence may be briefly summarized as fol- 
lows: 

"1. Thirteen witnesses state that they have seen 
heavy bodies — in some instances men — rise slowly in 
the air and remain there for some time without visible 
or tangible support. 

"2. Fourteen witnesses testify to having seen hands 
or figures, not appertaining to any human being, but 
life-like in appearance and mobility, which they have 
sometimes touched or even grasped, and which they 
are therefore convinced were not the result of im- 
posture or illusion. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 29 

"Thirteen witnesses declare that they have heard 
musical pieces played upon instruments not manipu- 
lated by any ascertainable agency. . . . 

"5. Five witnesses state that they have seen red-hot 
coals applied to the hands or heads of several persons 
without producing pain or scorching; and three wit- 
nesses state that they have had the same experiment 
made upon themselves with the like immunity. . . . 

"8. Three witnesses state that they have been present 
when drawings, both in pencil and colors, were pro- 
duced in so short a time, and under such conditions, 
as to render human agency impossible. 

"9. Six witnesses declare that they have received 
information of future events, and that in some cases 
the hour and minute of their occurrence have been ac- 
curately foretold, days and even weeks before. 

"In addition to the above, evidence has been given 
of trance-speaking, of healing, of automatic writing, 
of the introduction of flowers and fruits into closed 
rooms, of voices in the air, of visions in crystals and 
glasses, and of the elongation of the human body." 1 

To appreciate the difficulty of assuming the impli- 
fication of fraud a sufficient explanation of these phe- 
nomena, it must be remembered that, in the words of 
the Report: 

"1. All of these meetings were held at the private 
residences of members of the committee, purposely to 
preclude the possibility of prearranged mechanism or 
contrivance. 

"The furniture of the room in which the experiments 



^Report on Spiritualism of the Committee of the Dialectical 
Society, July 20, 1870. 



30 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

were conducted was on every occasion its accustomed 
furniture. The tables were in all cases heavy dining- 
tables, requiring a strong effort to move them. . . . 

"The room, tables and furniture generally were re- 
peatedly subjected to careful examination before, dur- 
ing and after the experiments, to ascertain that no 
concealed machinery, instrument or other contrivances 
existed by means of which the sounds or movements 
. . . mentioned could be caused. 

"2. Your committee have avoided the employment 
of professional or paid mediums, the mediumship be- 
ing that of members of your sub-committee [the prin- 
cipal medium was the wife of a prominent member of 
the Dialectical Society], persons of good social posi- 
tion and of unimpeachable integrity, having no pe- 
cuniary object to serve, and nothing to gain by decep- 
tion. 

"3. The members of the committee itself were men 
of all professions, ingenious lawyers, shrewd business 
men, skilful physicians, practical scientists. . . . 
About four-fifths entered upon the investigation wholly 
skeptical as to the reality of the alleged phenomena, 
firmly believing them to be the result either of im- 
posture or of delusion, or of involuntary muscular 
action. It was only by irresistible evidence, under con- 
ditions that precluded the possibility of either of these 
solutions, and after trial and test many times repeated, 
that the most skeptical of your sub-committee were 
slowly and reluctantly convinced that the phenomena 
exhibited in the course of their protracted inquiry were 
veritable facts. 

"4. There were no hasty generalizations or in- 
sufficient data. No less than forty meetings were held 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 31 

and 'careful notes were taken and signed for verifica- 
tion by all present.' 

"5. There was a minimum of chance for self-delusion 
or inadequate observation. The experiments were 
conducted in the light of gas, except on the few occa- 
sions specially noted in the minutes. 

"The sounds were distinctly audible to the ear, . . . 
the motions obvious to the sight. It was not a question 
of doubtful mental impression only, but of actual meas- 
urement. The table and other pieces of furniture had 
changed their position by so many inches, feet, yards. 

"At times," say the authors of the Report in closing, 
"we sat under the table when the motions and sounds 
were most vigorous. We held the hands and feet of 
the psychic. Our ingenuity was exercised in the in- 
vention and application of tests. After trials often 
repeated we were compelled to confess that imposture 
was out of the question." 1 

At greater detail, Mr. Cox, in the Report of the sub- 
committee, says : 

"The smaller furniture of the room is frequently at- 
tracted to the place where the psychic sits. Chairs far 
out of reach and untouched may be seen moving along 
the floor in a manner singularly resembling the motion 
that may be observed in pieces of steel attracted by a 
magnet, which rise a little, fall, move on, stop, until 
fully within the influence of the magnetic force, and 
then jump to the magnet with a sudden spring. . . . 
Nor is this phenomena at all dubious to the spectator. 



^Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the Dialectical 
Society. Comment by Mr. Edw. Cox, F.R.G.S. 



32 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

However it may be done, the fact is indisputable that it 
is done." 1 

And, lest all this fail to be conclusive, read the com- 
mittee's summary of the results of its work : 

"The motions were witnessed simultaneously by all 
present. They were matters of measurement, and not 
of opinion or fancy. And they occurred so often, 
under so many and such various conditions, with such 
safeguards against error or deception, and with such 
invariable results, as to satisfy the members of your 
sub-committee by whom the experiments were tried, 
wholly skeptical as most of them were when they en- 
tered upon the investigation, that there is a force 
capable of moving heavy bodies without material con- 
tact, and which force is in some unknown manner de- 
pendent upon the presence of human beings." 

"Spirit" Slate-Writing 

The phenomena of slate-writing, in spite 01 the large 
place it assumes in the literature of spiritualism, may 
be dismissed by us with a few words, and for a very 
simple reason. It is so permeated and impregnated 
with gross fraud of a hundred varied kinds that there 
is the gravest doubt whether there is or ever was one 
genuine case. Mr. Carrington says: "If we were to 
read carefully thru the historical evidence for the 
phenomena of slate-writing, we should find it to con- 
sist of one long and practically unbroken series of ex- 
poses of fraud and trickery, with no real evidence 
worth mentioning for the genuine manifestations of 

% Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the Dialectical 
Society. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 33 

any supernormal power, nor any indication of any force 
or agency whatever at work beyond the muscles of 
the medium." 1 In short, nowhere has a perverted 
human ingenuity displayed itself to better advantage ; 
and the cleverness often shown, displayed in a better 
cause, would inspire enthusiastic admiration. 

Slate-writing phenomena, it might be explained, 
consists in the appearance of writing on slates in the 
presence of a medium, the slates being so sealed or 
handled that it seems veritably impossible for any 
"messages" to appear without the intervention of 
spirits. 

The great blow to the pretensions of slate-writing 
mediums was given by the Seybert Commission. Henry 
Seybert, a spiritualist, left a large sum of money to 
the University of Pennsylvania for the express pur- 
pose of making an exhaustive scientific investigation 
of spiritualism. A committee was appointed, which 
made a perfunctory Report, chiefly on the notorious 
medium, Slade. All the mediums examined were pro- 
fessionals, little money was expended, and the results 
published were so incomplete as to be practically value- 
less; but the work was abandoned and Mr. Seybert's 
money diverted by the university to other uses. There 
are few more flagrant examples of misappropriation 
of funds ; and the large amount of serious work since 
done and still to do shows how little excuse those in 
authority had foi their action. The wrong is one, how- 
ever, which even yet could and should be righted. 

The methods of producing fraudulent slate-writing 
are multiform. 



Harrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 84. 



34 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

In one case "the medium had secreted unaer the 
finger-nail of his first finger a minute fragment of 
slate-pencil, and, when the slate was in position, all he 
had to do was to extend this finger, and to write on the 
under surface of the slate whatever he desired. . . . 
The writing is scrawling, but that makes no difference ; 
the sitters are glad to get it just the same." 1 

In another case the medium made pencils "by pul- 
verizing a slate-pencil and mixing the powder thus ob- 
tained with ordinary mucilage, forming a thick paste. 
This was cut into small squares, about the size of a 
rice grain. These squares were allowed to dry per- 
fectly hard. . . . When he seated himself to give 
the writings he would deposit about a dozen of the 
mucilage pencils on his left knee. . . . He held 
them a few seconds in his closed hand before sticking 
them on his knee. This warmed them and made them 
sticky, so that they stuck where he put them." 2 

Double slates with secret flaps and springs of vari- 
ous kinds are of course common. In his Physical 
Phenomena of Spiritualism, the fascinating expose of 
fraudulent spiritualist devices from which these quo- 
tations are made, Mr. Carrington gives the following 
absurdly simple yet very mystifying variation: 

"A book of poems is handed to one of the investi- 
gators with the request that he insert, anywhere be- 
tween its pages, a paper-knife, in order to mark the 
place. This is done. A slate is then shown, blank 
and cleaned. The person holding the book is now re- 
quested to open it and read the first verse on each 



'Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 104. 
'Ibid., p. 108. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 35 

page. Immediately this is done, the slates are opened, 
and the verses just read are found copied between the 
slates. 'There !' you will say, 'your silicate flap or 
acid-writing will not work in this case, for the writing 
I is done after the book is opened and read, and this is 
done only after the slates are fastened together.' 

"The writing was done through the flap method, just 
the same ! How did the medium know where the book 
would be opened? He did not care where it was 
opened, as the book was especially made for him, and 
every page was exactly alike, with the exception of 
the number I" 1 

But for downright cleverness the following trick- 
writing probably deserves a blue ribbon: "Examined 
and marked slates . . . are so sealed and fastened 
together that it would be an utter impossibility for 
the medium to open the slates in the slightest degree. 
The slates are free from writing or preparation of any 
kind when they are placed together, and they are 
fastened by the sitter himself, after a small piece of 
chalk has been placed between them. Let us suppose 
the sitter begins by screwing the frames of the slates 
together in several places, not only at the corners. 
. . . But, further, the skeptic proceeds to cover the 
heads of these screws with sealing-wax ; after which he 
proceeds to fasten or gum the frames of the slates 
together all the way round with strips of sticking- 
plaster, securing these in place and finally sealing the 
frame together in several different places, placing his 
signet on the seals. If he choose, he may glue the 
wooden frames of the slates together, also. The oper- 



^arrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism; pp. 124-5. 



36 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

ation has probably occupied many minutes. Medium 
and sitter now hold the slates beneath the table be- 
tween them for the space of, perhaps, a minute. At 
the end of that time the medium requests his sitter 
to take away the slates and open them, or to open them 
there, as the case may be. The sitter does so, and is 
amazed to find a message on the inner surface of one 
of the slates. It is very badly written, it is true, but 
the sitter is, rightly enough, glad to get writing of any 
kind under such conditions. 

"At first sight, such a test would appear absolutely 
beyond the bounds of any sort of trickery. I have 
stated that the slates were free from writing, as well 
as from preparation of any kind, when they were put 
together by the sitter, and this is strictly the truth. 
The writing was produced after the slates were placed 
together and sealed up as I have described. But this is 
an impossibility? Not so, evidently, since the writing 
is really there ! Then it must be genuine ! Thus rea- 
sons the skeptic, and, indeed, we can hardly blame him 
for his belief. 

"The trick, in this case, is worked upon entirely dif- 
ferent lines from any test so far described. I have 
stated that a piece of chalk (not slate-pencil) was 
placed between the slates, and it is chiefly in the chalk 
that the trick lies. It is not an ordinary piece of chalk, 
but is made of a compound of powdered chalk, water, 
glue and iron filings. These were all blended together 
and allowed to become dry and hard. This is the 
piece of 'chalk' placed between the sitters' slates. 

"Now, when the slates are placed under the table, 
the medium extracts, from his sleeve or elsewhere, a 
magnet, and with this he traces a series of letters on 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 37 

the under side of the bottom slate, in 'mirror-writing.' 
The iron filings in the mixture will follow the magnet, 
and the chalk will write on the slate in the regular 
manner. The medium locates the piece of chalk, in 
the first instance, by tipping the slate at an angle, so 
that the chalk will run into one corner. He first of all 
places the magnet in that corner and drags the bit of 
chalk to the middle of the slate before proceeding to 
write out the message." 1 

The recountal of all this fraudulent phenomena 
would have little value except as it shows the real dif- 
ficulties with which the investigator of psychic phe- 
nomena has to contend. As Mr. Carrington well notes 
regarding the above experiments : 

"The ingenuity of this test will serve ... to 
show the reader the extreme cunning of the profes- 
sional medium, and how useless it. is for the average 
individual, quite unacquainted with even the ordinary 
methods of trickery or the elements of conjuring, to 
hope to cope with the medium on his own ground, and 
even to beat at his own game a man who, naturally 
crafty, has made this particular branch of deception 
his life-study." 2 

The Famous Zollner Phenomena 
That collection of incidents known to students of 
spiritualism as the "Zollner phenomena," striking 
though they are, may also be dismissed with but a few 
words, and for the same reason as were the slate- 
writing phenomena — the possibility or even probability 



Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 134-6. 
1 Ibid, p. 136. 



38 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

of fraud. Some of them may have been genuine, but 
with a small space at our disposal, and with a wealth 
of unquestioned phenomena sufficient for all our needs, 
we need not even discuss those upon which the shadow 
of a reasonable doubt has been cast. 

First, very briefly as to the facts : x Dr. Zollner was 
an eminent physicist and psychologist and of the very 
highest reputation. The phenomena were observed, 
and his own conclusions corroborated, by three other 
professors of equally high rank, Fechner, Scheibner 
and Weber. The medium was Slade, the American. 
The seances took place at Zollner's house. 

Most of the phenomena observed, while not spectacu- 
lar, were more than usually astounding, from a scien- 
tific viewpoint : 

1. There were levitations, etc., in the customary 
manner, but of a remarkable character. 

2. Knots were tied in endless cords. 

3. Two wooden rings were slipped over the leg of 
a wooden table of a greater circumference than the 
rings themselves. 

4. Slate-writing occurred under very careful test 
conditions. 

In spite of the circumstantial evidence of genuine- 
ness which Dr. Zollner's account bears, the whole is 
vitiated. Zollner was attempting to find corroboration 
for his pet theory of "the fourth dimension" (the sec- 
ond and third phenomena above, if genuine, could not 
take place in our world of merely three dimensions) ; 
and his observation and testimony are biased by that 



J For these see especially Zollner's own book, Transcendental 
Physics. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 39 

idea. Slade's reputation was bad; the Seybert Com- 
mission had detected him in deliberate fraud. In re- 
gard to the corroborative testimony of Zollner's asso- 
ciates, Mr. George S. Fullerton showed that "both 
Fechner and Scheibner were partially blind at the time, 
and depended more on what Zollner told them was 
taking place than on what they could see for them- 
selves; while Weber was, in many ways, an incompe- 
tent witness of such phenomena. As to Zollner, the 
chief narrator, it was found that he was of slightly 
unsound mind (though all his associates admitted that 
this did not impair his capacity as an investigator or 
observer) ; . . . that he was, in many ways, an 
incautious observer and believer; and, lastly, and by 
far the most important point of all, is the fact that 
neither he nor any of his three colleagues knew any- 
thing whatever of conjuring or the possibilities of de- 
ception." 1 

In a masterly analysis of the rope-tying phenomena, 
Dr. Hyslop notes. twelve defects in the evidence, any 
one of which would be "sufficient to nullify its scien- 
tific character." 2 Mr. Carrington, after a careful ex- 
amination of the evidence, is "convinced" that the 
rings passed over the table leg "could have been man- 
aged by adroit trickery" ; 3 and he even explains how 
it may have been done. 

As to the "broken screen incident" (a case, by the 
way, which Zollner considered so conclusive that he 
detailed it at great length), where a strong wooden 
screen was apparently wrenched apart in the middle of 



l See the Seybert Commission Report, pp. 104-14. 

: See Hyslop : Borderland of Psychical Research, pp. 232-9. 

3 Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 31. 



40 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

a seance with a violent crack, falling in two pieces, 
the screws and other fastenings being wrenched from 
their sockets, "I would ask," says Mr. Carrington 1 
simply, "what proof have we that this tearing apart was 
not done before the seance, and the two parts merely 
tied together by means of a piece of thread, which 
could be pulled off later, allowing the two halves of 
the screen to fall apart as stated? There was plenty 
of time for Slade to 'fix' anything he liked before the 
seance, from all accounts, and there is nothing in the 
reports which would forbid our assuming that such 
an interpretation is the right one." 

The miraculous disappearance of the table makes 
interesting reading, but the incident is too ill-attested 
to warrant further mention here. Sufficient now that, 
on the whole, in spite of the important place the Z611- 
ner case holds in the history of spiritualism, we may 
assert the evidence so defective as to render it for 
our purposes unworthy of careful consideration. 

Rappings: The Fox Sisters 

A special interest attaches to the phenomena of rap- 
pings, because with them modern spiritualism took its 
birth. 

There are many now alive who remember the early 
days of the Fox manifestations, for it was as recently 
as March, 1848, that Miss Kate Fox, a nine-year-old 
girl in a farmer's family at Hydesville, a little village 
in central New York, imparted the astounding infor- 
mation that she was in communication with the dead. 
It was some time before her hard-headed and skeptical 



Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 27. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 41 

family became convinced that any intelligence directed 
the mysterious loud knockings with which the house- 
hold was annoyed. Soon, however, the signals were 
translated. They declared that "a murdered man was 
buried in the cellar of the house; it indicated the ex- 
act spot in the cellar under which the body lay; and 
upon digging there, at a depth of six or seven feet, 
considerable portions of a human skeleton were found. 
Yet more, the name of the murdered man was given, 
and it was ascertained that such a person had visited 
that very house and had disappeared five years before, 
and had never been heard of since. The signals fur- 
ther declared that he, the murdered man, was the sig- 
naler; and as all the witnesses satisfied themselves that 
the signals were not made by any living persons, or by 
any assignable cause, the logical conclusion . . . 
was that it was the spirit of the murdered man, how- 
ever improbable and absurd that might seem." 1 

The fame of the two sisters, Margaret and Kate (for 
both seemed to have developed this unknown power), 
was noised abroad locally. The neighbors came skep- 
tical, heard and saw, and were converted. 

Soon after a visit was made to Rochester, but the 
report of the miraculous doings of the sisters had pre- 
ceded them, and the ability accompanied them. More 
or less violent accusations of imposture were met with 
a readiness to undergo the most searching tests that 
the skeptics could devise. Three consecutive commit- 
tees of townspeople were appointed, examined the phe- 
nomena thoroly, and arrived finally at the same con- 



'Wallace: Miracles and Modem Spiritualism, p. 151. 



42 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

elusion — that the phenomena observed were certainly 
supernormal. 

"The last and most skeptical committee reported 
that they had heard sounds, and failed utterly to dis- 
cover their origin. They had proved that neither ma- 
chinery or imposture had been used, and their ques- 
tions, many of them being mental, were answered cor- 
rectly. . . ."* 

A more striking development soon appeared: their 
mediumship became imparted spontaneously to those 
with whom they came in contact. Mrs. Fish, a married 
sister of the Fox girls, living in Rochester, was the 
first to develop the new power. Kate Fox visited 
Auburn, near by, and the result was another crop of 
incipient "mediums" there. The movement spread like 
wildfire. 

"Sometimes," says a recent investigator, "the con- 
tagion was conveyed by a casual visit. Thus Miss 
Harriet Bebee, a young lady of sixteen, had an inter- 
view of a few hours with Mrs. Tamlin, a medium of 
Auburn, and on her return to her own home, twenty 
miles distant, the raps forthwith broke out in her 
presence. In the course of the next two or three 
years, indeed, the rappings had spread throughout the 
greater part of the Eastern States. Thus a writer in 
the New Haven Journal, in October, 1850, refers to 
knockings and other phenomena in seven different 
families in Bridgeport, forty families in Rochester, in 
Auburn, in Syracuse, 'some two hundred' in Ohio, in 
New Jersey, and places more distant, as well as in 
Hartford, Springfield, Charlestown, and elsewhere. A 



'Wallace: Miracles and Modem Spiritualism, p. 151. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 43 

year later a correspondent of the Spiritual World 
estimated that there were a hundred mediums in New 
York City, and fifty or sixty 'private circles' were 
reported in Philadelphia." 1 

The enthusiastic spiritualist must admit that some 
years later Kate Fox made what purported to be a 
confession of trickery, stating that the mysterious 
"rappings" that had puzzled all investigators were 
caused by voluntary cracking of abnormally loose knee 
and toe joints. And, on the other hand, the opponent 
of spiritualism must admit: First, that some years 
later, on her death bed, she retracted this alleged con- 
fession, reiterating the supernatural character of the 
phenomena produced by her ; and second, that the "con- 
fession" comes very far short of explaining all the 
phenomena which occurred. 

So the Fox case rests at present. At all events, 
the sisters were most directly instrumental in launch- 
ing the spiritualistic movement, and, tho later devel- 
oping other mediumistic faculties, the phenomena of 
rappings are those with which their names are oftenest 

associated. 

Are the Rappings Genuine? 

But it is impossible to dismiss the whole subject of 
rappings with an airy wave of the hand : the evidence 
is too voluminous and too strongly attested ; and even 
with Miss Fox it is difficult to pass a final and posi- 
tive opinion. To show what conflicts of testimony 
the investigator must weigh and reconcile, the com- 
ments of Sir William Crookes on her case are in- 
structive : 
"For several months I enjoyed almost unlimited op- 
'Podmore : Modern Spiritualism l VqI. I., p. 182. 



44 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

portunity of testing . . . the phenomena of these 
sounds. With mediums, generally, it is necessary to 
sit for a formal seance before anything is heard; but 
in the case of Miss Fox it seems only necessary for 
her to place her hand on any substance for loud thuds 
to be heard in it, like a triple pulsation, sometimes loud 
enough to be heard several rooms off. In this man- 
ner I have heard them in a living tree, on a sheet of 
glass, on a stretched iron wire, on a stretched mem- 
brane, a tambourine, on the roof of a cab, and on the 
floor of a theater. Moreover, actual contact is not 
always necessary ; I have had these sounds proceeding 
from the floor, walls, etc., when the medium's hands 
and feet were held, when she was standing on a chair, 
when she was suspended in a swing from the ceiling, 
when she was enclosed in a wire cage, and when she 
had fallen fainting on a sofa. I have heard them on a 
glass harmonicon, I have felt them on my own shoulder 
and under my own hands, I have heard them on a 
sheet of paper, held between the fingers by a piece of 
thread passed thru one corner. With a full knowl- 
edge of the numerous theories which have been started, 
chiefly in America, to explain these sounds, I have 
tested them in every way that I could devise, until 
there has been no escape from the conviction that they 
were true objective occurrences, not produced by 
trickery or mechanical means." 1 

These sounds are, as Sir William Crookes said, 
"noticed with almost every medium, each having a 
special peculiarity." 2 This latter fact is noted also 



Brookes : Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena Called 
Spiritual. — Quarterly Journal of Science, Jan., 1874, p. 83. 
2 Ibid. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 45 

by Professor Barrett. "Not only," he says, "do the 
raps indicate that they are governed by some intelli- 
gence, but the raps themselves are distinct and per- 
sonal in character, just as handwriting or the touch of 
varied individuals on a typewriter or on an electric 
keyboard is different. Each individuality has his own 
particular kind of rap." 1 

They appear, too, in varied forms and in the most 
unexpected places. M. Flammarion notes the case of 
a Dr. Maxwell, whose mediumistic friend produced 
raps in restaurants and railway lunch-counters. These 
were contrary to his own desire, being so loud as to 
attract attention and even cause personal annoyance. 

Victorin Joncieres, the well-known composer, re- 
lates the following experience: 

"On the next day, before my departure, I went to 
pay a visit to M. X. He received me in his dining- 
hall. Through the large open window a beautiful 
June sun flooded the room with its brilliant light. 

"While we were conversing in a desultory way, a 
piece of military music rang out in the distance. 'If 
there is a spirit here,' said I, smiling, 'it ought by 
rights to accompany the music' At once rhythmic 
taps, in exact harmony with the double-quick time, 
were heard in the table. The crackle of sounds in it 
died away little by little in a decrescendo very skilfully 
timed to the last vanishing blare of the bugles. 

" 'Give us a fine tattoo to finish,' said I, when the 
sounds had completely ceased. The reply was a series 
of sounds like the heavy roll of drums, given with such 
force that the table trembled on its legs. I put my hand 

a S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 4, pp. 34-5. 



46 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

on it and very plainly felt the vibrations of the wood 
as it was struck by the invisible force." 1 

Jacolliot, in his Occult Science in India, tells of a 
Hindu fakir, on the former's own veranda, who ex- 
tended both hands "toward an immense bronze vase 
full of water. Within five minutes the vase commenced 
to rock to and fro on its base, and approach the fakir 
gently and with a regular motion. As the distance 
diminished, metallic sounds escaped from it, as if 
some one had struck it with a steel rod. At certain 
times the blows were so numerous and quick that they 
produced a sound similar to that made by a hail- 
storm upon a metal roof." 2 

One important question, to be considered more fully 
later, should be at least mentioned here: Are these 
sounds governed by any apparent intelligence? 

The earliest Fox rappings, as we have noted, spelled 
out a message regarding the body in the cellar — facts 
apparently known to no living person. The same is 
noted by Professor Barrett, M. Flammarion, and many 
other investigators. The immaterial drummer obeyed 
the request of M. Joncieres ; but Sir William Crookes 
notes that the raps are "frequently in direct opposition 
to the wishes of the medium," and in Dr. Maxwell's 
case the noises displayed a most waggish perversity. 

"At a very early stage of the inquiry," says Crookes, 
"it was seen that the power producing the phenomena 
was not merely a blind force, but was associated with or 
governed by intelligence; thus the sounds to which I 
have just alluded will be repeated a definite number of 



1 Flammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 346. 
'Jacolliot : Occult Science in India, p. 231. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 47 

times; they will come loud or faint, and in different 
places at request; and, by a prearranged code of sig- 
nals, questions are answered and messages given with 
more or less accuracy." 1 

Table-Tipping 

Of all the physical phenomena of spiritualism, table- 
tipping (including loosely in that term all forms of 
movement of material bodies without the exertion of 
force) is perhaps the most common. For that reason 
it has been most carefully observed and most widely 
discussed. 

In the very beginning, whatever our presuppositions 
pro or con, or whatever explanation we may make as 
to reasons or causes, the fact that tables and other 
articles of furniture do under certain conditions move, 
apparently of their own accord, must be admitted as 
established. 

The phenomenon itself is simple. A number of peo- 
ple sit around a table, placing the tips of their 
fingers lightly on the top. The number of persons 
in the circle, the size or weight of the table, darkness 
or daylight — these conditions seem to make very little 
difference. After a varying interval of anticipation, 
the table will begin to tremble and finally to jump up 
and down with nervous little jerks or hops. Occasion- 
ally its movements will become violent, and the table 
will progress around the room without help or guid- 
ance (voluntary, at least) from the experimenters. 
Rarely, the table will move and even rise in the air, 
apparently of its own accord, without any visible con- 
tact whatever. 



'Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Scl, Jan., 1874, p. 83. 



48 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Now, as was said, these facts are incontestable. That 
furniture does act in the manner described no scien- 
tist, who has examined the evidence, denies. Mr. Car- 
rington, tho a scathing critic of spiritualism, admits: 
"There can be no doubt that a large part of the 
[table-turning] phenomena, at least, are genuine, how- 
ever we may choose to interpret them. . . . The 
sole difficulty lies in the interpretation of the facts ; in 
the explanation that is given of the phenomena ob- 
served." 1 

M. Flammarion says : "For me the levitation of ob- 
jects is no more doubtful than that of scissors lifted by 
the aid of a magnet." 2 Dr. Marvin, in his attack, The 
Philosophy of Spiritualism, says: "The phenomena 
are genuine. The hypothesis which spiritualists en- 
deavor to build on these phenomena is altogether an- 
other thing." Prof. W. F. Barrett notes several in- 
stances in his paper entitled On Some Phenomena, 
Commonly Called Spiritualistic, Witnessed by the 
y Author. 

^ Sir William Crookes calls "the movement of heavy 
bodies with contact, but without mechanical exertion 
. . . one of the simplest forms of the phenomena 
observed. It -varies in degree from a quivering or 
vibration of the room and its contents to the actual 
rising into the air of a heavy body when the hand is 
placed on it. The retort is obvious that if people are 
touching a thing when it moves, they push it or pull it 
or lift it. I have proved experimentaly that this is not 
the case in numerous instances, but as a matter of evi- 



1 Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 64. 
"Flammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 49 

dence I attach little importance to this class of phe- 
nomena by itself, and only mention them as a prelim- 
inary to other movements of the same kind, but without 
contact." 1 

He speaks of this class a little later as follows: 
"The instances in which heavy bodies, such as tables, 
chairs, sofas, etc., have been moved, when the medium 
has not been touching them, are very numerous. I 
will briefly mention a few of the most striking. My 
own chair has been twisted partly round, while my 
feet were off the floor. A chair was seen by all pres- 
ent to move slowly up to the table from a far corner, 
when all were watching it ; on another occasion an arm- 
chair moved to where we were sitting, and then moved 
slowly back (a distance of about three feet), at my 
request. On three successive evenings a small table 
moved slowly across the room, under conditions which 
I had specially prearranged, so as to answer any ob- 
jection which might be raised to the evidence. I have 
had several repetitions of the experiment considered 
by the committee of the Dialectical Society to be con- 
clusive, viz., the movement of a heavy table in full 
light, the chairs turned with their backs to the table, 
about a foot off, and each person kneeling on his chair, 
with hands resting over the backs of the chairs, but 
not touching the table. On one occasion this took 
place when I was moving about, so as to see how 
every one was placed." 2 Passing on in his ascending 
scale of apparent difficulty, Crookes makes the follow- 
ing interesting note on his "Class V" instances of "the 
rising of tables and chairs off the ground, without 

1 Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Scl, Jan., 1874, p. 82. 
nbid, p. 84. 



50 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

contact with any person." It answers a question very 
frequently asked : 

"A remark is generally made when occurrences of 
this kind are mentioned. Why is it only tables and 
chairs which do these things? Why is this property 
peculiar to furniture? I might reply that I only ob- 
serve and record facts, and do not profess to enter 
into the why and wherefore; but, indeed, it will be 
obvious that if a heavy, inanimate body in an ordinary 
dining-room has to rise off the floor, it cannot very 
well be anything else but a table or a chair. That 
this propensity is not specially attached to furniture, 
I have abundant evidence ; but, like other experimental 
demonstrators, the intelligence or power, whatever it 
may be, which produces these phenomena can only 
work with the materials which are available. 

"On five separate occasions a heavy dining-table 
rose between a few inches and one and one-half feet 
off the floor, under special circumstances which ren- 
dered trickery impossible. On another occasion a 
heavy table rose from the floor in full light, while I 
was holding the medium's hands and feet. On another 
occasion the table rose from the floor, not only when 
no person was touching it, but under conditions which 
I had prearranged so as to assure unquestionable 
proof of the fact." 1 

The Researches of De Gasparin: What Causes Table-Tipping? 

Considering the phenomena of table-tipping in some- 
what more regular order, we will find that the first, 
and what is still in many respects the most important 



J Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874, pp. 84-5. 




5 ^1 

■2 o 






2 gs 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 51 

scientific investigation ever made was that of Count 
Agenor de Gasparin, at Valleyres in Switzerland, in 
1853, the formal report of which was shortly after 
published in two imposing volumes. 1 The phenomena 
were observed with unimpaired success under test 
conditions of the most stringent, and varied kind. 
Tables tipped, moved vigorously, and were levitated 
repeatedly and at will for months and before any one 
who wished to observe. Careful record was kept, and 
a large amount of data secured. To prove the absence 
of contact, the top of the table was dusted with flour 
with a bellows, then the heavy table was levitated, 
rising bodily into the air, not once, but several times. 
Afterward "the table was scrupulously examined; no 
■finger had touched it, or even grazed it in the slightest 
degree." 2 At times the tables displayed a most per- 
verse stubbornness, refusing to stir in answer to any 
amount of waiting or coaxing. At other times, under 
seemingly identical conditions, "they have seen the 
same table legs perform levitations that were so free 
and energetic that they anticipated the hands, got the 
start of the orders, and executed the thoughts almost 
before they were conceived, and with an energy well- 
nigh terrifying." 

With Eusapia Paladino, most famous of all "phys- 
ical mediums" to-day, table-tipping is so usual an 
occurrence as no longer to excite even comment. But 
her exploits are marvelous enough to receive later the 
special mention they deserve. 



l Des Tables tournantes, du Surnaturel en general, et des 
Esprits, par le comte Agenor de Gasparin. Paris, Dentu, 1854. 

2 For a summary of the experiments of De Gasparin, see 
Flammarion's Mysterious Psychic Forces Chap. VI. 



52 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Before I go further, however, I wish to make what 
may seem an astonishing statement : For the purposes 
of our inquiry it does not make one iota of difference 
whether tables ever tipped or not. No space would be 
given even to a discussion of the phenomena were it 
not that no other one class of facts bulks so largely 
in the popular conception of the methods of psychic 
research. 

When the phenomena were first observed they were 
inexplicable by the forces of existing science. Science 
being at fault, it was the easiest thing to lay it all 
to "spiritual" intervention. When the phenomena at 
last attracted the attention of men of science, attempts 
were at once made with varying success to enunciate a 
satisfactory theory. 

Remember, I am still speaking entirely of the "phys- 
ical" aspects of the phenomena, with the movements 
of bodies by an inexplicable force. The alleged mes- 
sages rapped out by tables are another matter, which 
will be considered in their proper place. 

Regarding table-tipping phenomena, science has 
taken three attitudes : 

1. Scoffing and complete denial. Forced from this 
position by the overwhelming weight of the evidence 
presented, it said: 

2. That the phenomena were due to "unconscious 
muscular action." This theory rests on a foundation 
of observed experimentation and is an adequate ex- 
planation for a good deal of the simpler phenomena. 
Professor Faraday invented an instrument for register- 
ing this unconscious "push and pull" action in indi- 
vidual cases; "and Professor Jastrow further con- 
clusively proved, in a careful series of experiments 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 5S 

conducted some years ago, that not only is this action 
present and operative in all normal individuals, but 
that this push and pull corresponded invariably with 
the expectation of the sitter, who had his hands on the 
board." Not only this, but, as Mr. Carrington adds, 
"there is a great deal of evidence that goes to show 
that this unconscious muscular force is frequently 
stronger and more powerful than the individual could 
consciously control or summon. ... At all events, 
we know that in moments of extreme fear or excite- 
ment, when the conscious mind is largely in abeyance, 
many acts are performed which would be quite im- 
possible to the normal individual, being beyond his 
normal muscular ability." 1 

We even have a phrase in the melodramatic novel : 
"With a sudden access 'of superhuman strength' the 
hero (or heroine) tore down the barred door (or 
severed the cable) with his (or her) bare hands"; or 
performed some other ordinarily "impossible feat." 
The same thing has been noted with subjects in an 
hypnotic condition. 

This theory, however, failed utterly, of course, to 
explain the levitation or movement of articles with- 
out contact. A third hypothesis was perforce formu- 
lated : 

3. That there is some hitherto unknown force ema- 
nating from the human organism which is capable of 
influencing material bodies ; and Professor Thury, in a 
"conscientious monograph," coins the word "psychode" 
for this "intermediary between the mind and the body," 
which "can project itself beyond the limits of the 
body." 

Harrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 68. 



54. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Little, however, has really been accomplished in 
proof or disproof. Science generally accepts what 
she can explain (table-tipping), and flatly denies any- 
thing further (levitation), an eminently safe but rather 
illogical proceeding! This, too, in defiance of the un- 
qualified assertion in the strongest terms of such sci- 
entists, writers and philosophers, many of them emi- 
nent, as Myers, Lodge, Aksakof, Flammarion, Lom- 
broso, De Gasparin, Richet, Crookes, Hyslop, Thury, 
Porro, Limoncelli, Carrington, Zollner, Marvin, Bar- 
rett, Schiaparelli, Gerosa, Sully-Prudhome, Du Prel, 
Ermacora, Hodgson, Ochorowicz, Morselli, Bianchi 
and hundreds of other independent and honest ob- 
servers. 

These men assert because they have seen, tested, 
and believe they have proved. Science, generally, not 
having seen, denies out of hand, because the phe- 
nomena are inexplicable and "impossible." The reader 
in this case must choose for himself. 




Camille Flammarion 

Noted as an astronomer and as a writer and investigator of occult 
phenomena. 



"THAT THE SOUL SURVIVES THE BODY I HAVE NOT 
THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT." 

That the Soul survives the destruction of the body I have 
not the shadow of a doubt. It is not the body which pro- 
duces life. It is Life which organizes the body. 

The purely mechanical explanation of the Universe is in- 
sufficient. We live in the middle of an unexplored world in 
which the psychic forces play a role as yet but imperfectly 
understood. These forces are of an order superior to the 
physical and mechanical, generally. 

To men familiar with the history of Science, the attitude 
of people who deny certain phenomena simply because they 
are not yet understood and explained, is simple folly. 
The thing which we are in the habit of naming "common 
sense" is only an expression of the state of general ignorance. 
There are very few people who have the intelligence free and 
broad enough to accept, without some preconceived idea, new 
and unexplained facts. 

As for me, I am only a humble student in the prodigious 
problem of the Universe. I search and I commune with the 
Sphinx. "What are we?" We know, proof positive, scarcely 
more to-day than we did in the time w£en Socrates propound- 
ed his famous maxim, Know Thyself ! ' It is true that we have 
learned how to measure the distances to the stars, we can 
analyze the substance of the sun, and weigh worlds. Is the 
study of ourselves, then, less interesting than that of the 
exterior world? This is not probable. But I hasten to warn 
you that I am not wise enough to explain this mystery which 
surrounds the problem of Life and Death. 

I pass my life in a retired garden consecrated to one of 
the Nine Muses (Astronomy), and in my attachment for that 
beautiful Infant I seldom find time to visit other Temples. 
It is only at intervals, for the renewed vigor which the change 
brings, and by curiosity, that I permit my investigations to 
drift in the direction of the "Unknown Shore." 
55 



56 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

In the intervals of my more pressing work, during the long 
nights passed at the top of my observatory in thought and 
study, I have always observed certain phenomena, which 
seemed to be the action of unknown forces. Sometimes they 
seemed analogous to those which the magnetizer uses to put 
his patient to sleep. Magnetism, hypnotism — these are forces 
but little understood, by the way, even by those who make 
use of them. 

On other occasions it seemed to me that these forces were 
similar to the action produced by thunder. And again they 
seemed to be forces distinct from all others, a something which 
nearest approaches to the human intelligence. For some years 
I have been in the habit of referring to this element as the 
Psychic Forces. In the study of these Psychic phenomena 
we can afford to brave the smiles of the incredulous, for this 
touches the greatest problem of Humanity — the problem of 
Survival. 

If these forces of which we have been speaking are real, 
then they must be natural, since there is nothing in Nature 
which is not logical. 

One thing is certain, there is no effect without a cause. The 
supernatural does not exist, and the day of miracles is past. 
It is only by positive study of effects that we are able to 
arrive at the cause. 

One of the first conclusions at which I have arrived after 
years of experimenting is that the human being possesses 
within himself certain fluidic and psychic forces the nature 
of which is as yet only imperfectly understood, and that this 
force is capable of moving objects at a distance, without con- 
tact. It is the expression of our Will and our desires. 

it******** 

Man is a double being, and that double nature is to himself 
still a mystery. We think. But what is a thought? No 
one knows. We walk. But what is the organic act? No one 
knows. Tell me, he who can, how a thought is conceived, 
and where, and what is the nature of cerebral action! It 
is dangerous to believe, and it is dangerous not to believe, in 
a Supreme Intelligence. As to the knowledge of the psychol- 
ogy of the Soul, we are to-day where chemistry was in the 
days of Albert the Grand. We know nothing! Your heart 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 57 

beats night and day. It is a spring very well wound up. But 
who wound it? 



What holds the earth in space? The laws of gravitation 
and energy. What is it that kills in a rifle hall? Its speed, 
its energy, the invisible element which exists everywhere in 
everything. 

We know so little of our mental being that it is impossible 
for us to know of what we ourselves are capable, and especially 
in certain states of unconsciousness. The intelligence which 
directs us is not always personal. 

Matter is not in reality what it seems to our vulgar senses; 
that is, to our sight and touch. But it is one with energy, and 
is only a manifestation of the movements, invisible and im- 
ponderable. The Universe is a vast dynamo, and matter but 
an appearance. 

We are living in the breast of an unexplored world in which 
the psychic forces play a role as yet but little understood 
and appreciated. We are, as regards these phychic forces, 
in about the position in which Columbus found himself when 
he first touched land in the New World. We are floating on 
the borders of a great unknown. We are at the dawn of a new 
Science, and who can foretell its influence in the world of 
thought? 

Our terrestrial organism may be compared to a harp with 
only two strings — that of sight and that of hearing. By 
those two nerves only are we capable of receiving sensations. 
Now there exists in reality in Nature not two, but ten, a hun- 
dred, a thousand kinds of movements. 

Psychical science informs us that we live in the midst of a 
world invisible to us, and that it is not impossible that there 
exists also on the earth beings absolutely different from our- 
selves, incapable of manifesting themselves to us, except dimly, 
because of our very limited means or organs of communication. 

The most rational means which scientific men to-day possess 
of studying this dim connection which we have with these un- 
known forces is through the channel of Mediums, or sensitives, 
and this has led to the founding in all civilized countries of 
the Societies of Psychical Research. For the thing dubbed 



58 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

"spiritualism" is a science and not a religion. It is a science 
of which we know, as yet, only the A, B, C. 

Scientific men of England, of America, of Germany, and of 
Italy, who have devoted years to the study of the psychology 
of "raps," and of the existence of these unknown forces capable 
of moving objects at a distance, as a table or a chair — all of 
these men are unanimous in swearing to the existence of these 
phenomena as a fact. But no one knows their mode of repro- 
duction. They exist as positively as the phenomena of elec- 
tricity. There is an invisible cause which produces these 
"raps." Is this cause within ourselves or outside of us? That 
is the question. 

In experimenting with mediums this force which comes into 
existence usually pretends to be some reincarnated spirit of 
the dead. But if we push our investigations and our questions 
to the end, these so called spirits generally finish by answers 
which would indicate that this is an error. I do not say that 
spirits do not exist. On the contrary, I have reason to admit 
their existence, as in the experiments I have made it is not 
possible to eliminate the hypothesis of their existence. 

There is also the possibility of the existence of the Soul after 
death without the possibility of our being able to communicate 
with it. 

We often take our ideas for reality. This is a mistake. 
For example, to us the air is not a solid. We pass through it 
without effort. An iron door, on the contrary, we find impene- 
trable. But with electricity, exactly the contrary obtains. It 
passes through iron and finds the air an impenetrable solid. 
Flesh, clothes and wood are transparent for the X-rays, while 
glass is opaque. 

Newton discovered that all of the celestial Planets move as if 
attracted and held in space by a common force. He called it 
gravity. That force was not explained in his day, and, for 
the matter of that, it has never been explained. 

A medium places his or her hand upon a table and it moves. 
But the force which moves it is unexplained. Is it, then, 
untrue because of that? 

Let us remember that almost every scientific fact which 
exists to-day has been denied. 

Many objections have been made because a medium undej 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 59 

control brings forth his best efforts in semi-obscurity. And we 
are bound to admit that this is an inconvenience for the in- 
vestigators. But it is in no way, to the intelligent mind, at 
least, a suspicious circumstance. Try, if you will, to develop 
a photographic negative anywhere except in a dark room; or 
to produce electricity in a room the atmosphere of which is 
saturated with humidity. Light is the natural medium for 
producing certain effects, and it completely opposes the pro- 
duction of certain others. Prevent, if you can, light from 
blackening iodine, or make it blacken lime. Ask of electricity 
why it will pass instantly from one end to another of a 
long wire, and then why it refuses to pass through a piece of 
glass one-eighth of an inch in diameter. Ask of night-blooming 
flowers to expand in the daytime, and of those which open only 
in the sunshine to blow at night. Give me a reason for the 
diurnal and nocturnal respiration of plants. Why do plants 
inhale oxygen, and exhale carbonic acid gas during the night, 
when they do exactly the opposite in the sunshine? 

Suppose some one says he will only believe in the existence 
of the stars when he has seen them in the daytime. What 
would be thought of his mentality? But it is useless to multi- 
ply examples. We might go on indefinitely. Man is only a 
feeble atom, a speck lost in the contemplation of the Infinite. 
He has thought himself capable to unravel the mystery of the 
Universe when he has not yet mastered the material forces 
around him. He has tried to explain the grandeur of the skies 
when he is incapable of analyzing the grain of dust at his 
feet. 

In any case, if the investigations of the Society of Psychical 
Research have not yet given all that people pretend, nor all 
that it will yet give, one is bound to admit that it has consid- 
erably enlarged the nature of the understanding of the quali- 
ties of the Soul and its faculties. It has practically demon- 
strated the existence of the Soul as an entity, distinct from 
the body. 

Many other forces will be discovered as we make progress 
along these lines. Things exist in the Universe of which 
human intelligence has never dreamed. The earth turned 
on its axis, and the celestial bodies moved in perfect harmony 
with the laws of gravitation, ages before we were aware of it, 



60 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

and while we still fondly imagined the earth to be the center 
of all, a fixed body with a flat surface. Terrestrial magnetism 
belted the earth for centuries while the Races of men slept in 
blissful ignorance of the existence of such a force. The possi- 
bilities of wireless telegraphy were in the electric currents then 
as now. The waves of the ocean lapped the shores in musical 
cadence long before there were human ears to listen to them. 
Our mental eyes are opening to the light of the Creation but 
slowly. 

And to sum up my convictions as regards a future existence, 
my researches have brought me to this conclusion: 

(i) That the Soul exists as a real entity, independent of 
the body. 

(2) It is gifted with faculties as yet unknown to Science. 

(3) It can act at a distance, without the medium of the 
Senses. 

There exists in Nature a psychic element of variable activity, 
the essence of which rests yet hidden. 

For my own part, I shall be content if my work and investi- 
gations, extending now over a period of more than thirty years, 
can help to form a point of departure for those who shall come 
after me. 

— Camille Flammarion. 




Daniel Dunglas Home 



The greatest of all so-called "physical mediums." Altho his phe- 
nomena were quite the most wonderful on record, he was never once 
so much as suspected of fraud. 



CHAPTER III 
THE MEDIUMSHIP OF D. D. HOME 

I have purposely reserved what is by far the most 
imposing group of purely "physical" phenomena to 
the last. If the spiritualist has already convinced you 
of the adequacy of his evidence for the supernormal, 
you will at least find an account of the Home phe- 
nomena intensely interesting reading. If you are still 
equally sure, on the contrary, that spiritualism is mere- 
ly a gigantic hoax, the Home phenomena must at least 
make you pause and reconsider. 

Daniel Dunglas Home is by far the most striking 
"physical" medium in the history of spiritualism, part- 
ly from the very wonderful nature of the feats he per- 
formed, partly from the high social and scientific rank 
of the persons who witnessed and recorded his ex- 
ploits, partly from the fact that never once in his 
long career was he detected in or even so much as 
suspected of any form of fraud. 

Scotch by birth, he came to America while still 
but a child, and resided in a small town in Connecticut 
through youth and early manhood. Soon after the Fox 
sisters attracted the attention of the curiosity-loving 
public, Home found himself the possessor of medium- 
istic ability. And it is a noteworthy testimonial to 
the genuineness of the phenomena produced by him, 
61 



62 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

that his family were so annoyed at times by his medi- 
umistic rappings and other antics that they turned the 
boy out-of-doors. "It is hardly likely," notes Mr. Car- 
rington, "that if Home had control over the phenomena, 
he would voluntarily have carried them to this extent." 1 

Becoming a convert to spiritism in 1855, while still 
a very young man, he traveled abroad in the cause 
in which he was rapidly winning himself world-wide 
fame. "Everywhere he went he scored distinct tri- 
umphs, both as a medium and as a social favorite. He 
seems to have been a man of a fascinating personality, 
gaining with ease the friendship and confidence of all 
who came to know him. Belief in the genuineness of 
his pretensions was further strengthened by his per- 
sistent refusal to accept payment for his mediumistic 
performances — a fact which, it may incidentally be 
said, caused most people to overlook the equally ob- 
vious circumstance that he none the less owed his live- 
lihood almost entirely to his mediumship, admirers 
showering gifts upon him and frequently entertaining 
him as their guest for months at a time." 2 

His seances were attended by nobility and even 
royalty, by scientists and philosophers, among the 
latter Sir William Crookes; and indeed the latter's 
famous Report is based very largely on phenomena 
observed with Home. Everywhere he gave success- 
ful exhibitions of absolutely inexplicable phenomena, 
and, so far as his health would permit — for he was 
never robust — continued to do so till the day of his 
death, some twenty years ago in France. 



Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 373. 
2 Bruce : Riddle of Personality, p. 164. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 63 

With performances as striking as those of Home, 
the possibility of fraud must, of course, be squarely 
faced. But the entire absence even of suspicion has 
already been noted. Even Mr. Podmore, who attempt- 
ed to explain every alleged spiritualistic phenomenon 
on purely natural grounds, is forced with Home to 
admit there is no evidence of fraud. Mr. Carrington, 
who, as we have seen, knows the shady side of spirit- 
ualism from A to Z, says : "So far as it is known, tho 
Home was under far more careful and prolonged scru- 
tiny than any other medium, fraud was never detected 
at any of Home's seances, nor was it even suspected on 
any occasion. . . . Home always sat in the circle, side 
by side with the other sitters, and never made use of 
a cabinet of any sort. He also had a great objection 
to darkness, and insisted upon as much light as possi- 
ble on all occasions. So far as he [Mr. Podmore] was 
enabled to ascertain, there was not indicated in the 
records one iota of evidence against Home's character. 
'On the other hand,' he says, 'the internal evidence of 
the books and narratives seems to afford good ground 
for supposing that the phenomena were genuine.' " x 

Home's Levitations 

We have already noted Sir William Crookes' opin- 
ion of the genuineness of the Home phenomena in 
general. If stronger testimony were possible, how- 
ever, it must be found in his remarks upon Home's 
levitations : 

"There are at least a hundred recorded instances of 
Mr. Home rising from the ground, in the presence of 



Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 372-3. 



64 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

as many separate persons, and 3 have heard from the 
lips of the three witnesses to the most striking occur- 
rence of this kind — the Earl of Dunraven, Lord Lind- 
say and Captain C. Wynne — their own most minute 
accounts of what took place. To reject the recorded 
evidence on this subject is to reject all human testi- 
mony whatever, for no fact in sacred or profane his- 
tory is supported by a stronger array of proofs. 1 

"The accumulated testimony establishing Mr. 
Home's levitations is overwhelming," says Sir William 
Crookes. "It is greatly to be desired that some person, 
whose evidence would be accepted as conclusive by the 
scientific world — if indeed there lives a person whose 
testimony in favor of such phenomena would be taken 
— would seriously and patiently examine these alleged 
facts." 

It might be well now to consider certain of these 
examples of alleged levitation. Mr. Carrington's note 
regarding them is interesting: "Incredible as it may 
seem that a human being should be lifted off the 
ground, and remain in that position for some time, in 
opposition to the law of gravity, it is, nevertheless, one 
of the best attested of all the phenomena occurring 
in Home's presence, the quality and quantity of the 
evidence being both good and abundant. How famous 
the case is may be gauged by the fact that it is men- 
tioned in Brewer's Dictionary of Miracles, page 218." 2 

First, quotations from the account of Sir William 
Crookes contained in his Report: 

"The levitation of human beings . . . has oc- 
curred in my presence on four occasions in darkness. 

'The italics are mine. 

2 Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 378. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 65 

... I will here only mention cases in which the de- 
ductions of reason were confirmed by the sense of sight. 

"On one occasion I witnessed a chair, with a lady 
sitting on it, rise several inches from the ground. On 
another occasion, to avoid the suspicion of this being 
in. some way performed by herself, the lady knelt on 
the chair in such manner that its four feet were visible 
to us. It then rose about three inches, remained sus- 
pended for about ten seconds, and then slowly descend- 
ed. At another time two children, on separate occa- 
sions, rose from the floor with their chairs, in full day- 
light, under (to me) most satisfactory conditions ; for 
I was kneeling and keeping close watch upon the feet 
of the chair, and observing that no one might touch 
them. 

"The most striking cases of levitation which I have 
witnessed have been with Mr. Home. On three sepa- 
rate occasions have I seen him raised completely from 
the floor of the room. Once sitting in an easy-chair, 
once kneeling on his chair, and once standing up. On 
each occasion I had full opportunity of watching the 
occurrence as it was taking place." 1 

On another occasion Sir William wrote : "The best 
cases of Home's levitation I witnessed were in my own 
house. On one occasion he went to a clear part of 
the room, and, after standing quietly for a minute, 
told us he was rising. I saw him slowly rise up with a 
continuous gliding movement, and remain about six 
inches off the ground for several seconds, when he 
slowly descended. On this occasion no one moved 
from their places. On another occasion* I was invited 



'Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Set., Jan., 1874, p. 85. 



66 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

to come to him, when he rose eighteen inches off the 
ground, and I passed my hands under his feet, round 
him, and over his head when he was in the air. On 
several occasions, Home and the chair on which he 
was sitting at the table rose off the ground. This was 
generally done very deliberately, and Home sometimes 
then tucked his feet on the seat of the chair and held 
up his hands in full view of all of us. On such occa- 
sions I have gone down and seen and felt all four legs 
were off the ground at the same time, Home's feet 
being on the chair. Less frequently the levitating 
power extended to those next to him. Once my wife 
was thus raised off the ground in her chair." 1 

Even more conclusive, however, is the much-quoted 
account of another levitation given in the famous 
report of the Master of Lindsay (better known as the 
Earl of Crawford) : 

"I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare, and 
a cousin of his. During the sitting, Mr. Home went 
into a trance, and in that state was carried out of the 
window in the room next to where we were, and was 
brought in at our window. The distance between the 
windows was about seven feet six inches, and there 
was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was 
there more than a twelve-inch projection to each win- 
dow, which served as a ledge to put flowers on. 

"We heard the window in the next room lifted up, 
and almost immediately after we saw Home floating 
in the air outside our window. 

"The moon was shining into the room ; my back was 
to the light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the 



'Journal S. P. R., Vol. VI., pp. 341-2. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 67 

window-sill, and Home's feet about six inches above 
it. He remained in this position for a few seconds, 
then raised the window and glided into the room, feet 
foremost, and sat down. 

"Lord Adare then went into the next room to look 
at the window from which he had been carried. It 
was raised about eighteen inches, and he expressed his 
wonder how Mr. Home had been taken through so 
narrow an aperture. 

"Home said, still entranced, T will show you/ and 
then, with his back to the window, he leaned back, and 
was shot out of the aperture, head-first, with the body- 
rigid, and then returned quite quietly. 

"The window is about seventy feet 1 from the ground. 
I very much doubt whether any skilful tight-rope 
dancer would like to attempt a feat of this description, 
where the only means of crossing would be by a peril- 
ous leap, or being borne across in such a manner as I 
have described, placing the question of the light aside." 2 

The "cousin of his" referred to was a Captain 
Wynne; both he and Lord Adare corroborated in 
writing the correctness of the account given above. 

"Elongation": The "Heat Phenomena." 

Another phenomena observed with Home, and to a 
certain extent peculiar to him, was that of elongation. 
There are many probably who consider the ability to 
stretch one's fingers to double their normal length, or 
voluntarily extend one's arm an extra foot, even more 



'In his statement before the Dialectical Society he gives this 
distance as 85 feet. 

2 See the Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the 
Dialectical Society, p. 212. 



68 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

remarkable than the ability to float in the air unsup- 
ported. 

Space forbids more than a single example of this 
phenomena, this also from the account by the Master 
of Lindsay, as given in the Report of the Dialectical 
Society. 

"... I saw Mr. Home, in a trance, elongated 
eleven inches. I measured him standing up against the 
wall, and marked the place; not being satisfied with 
that, I put him in the middle of the room, and placed 
a candle in front of him, so as to throw a shadow on 
the wall, which I also marked. When he awoke I meas- 
ured him again in his natural size, both directly and 
by the shadow, and the results were equal. I can swear 
that he was not off the ground or standing on tiptoe, 
as I had full view of his feet, and, moreover, a gentle- 
man present had one of his feet placed over Home's 
insteps, one hand on his shoulder, and the other on his 
side, where the false ribs come near the hip-bone. . . . 
There was no separation of the vertebrae of the spine, 
nor were the elongations at all like those resulting from 
expanding the chest with air; the shoulders did not 
move. Home looked as if he was pulled up by the 
neck; the muscles seemed in a state of tension. He 
stood firmly in the middle of the room, and, before the 
elongation commenced, I placed my foot on his instep. 
I will swear he never moved his heels from the 
ground." 1 

Commenting on the evidence, Mr. Carrington says : 
"The defects in the report seem to me to be such as 



^rom the Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the 
'Dialectical Society, pp. 207-8, 213-14. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 69 

would be made by any person drawing up a report 
of unusual occurrences; minor inaccuracies exist, but 
the central facts seem to have been carefully noted, and 
rather more than the usual care exercised against 
fraud." 1 

A third class of extraordinary incidents of which it is 
necessary to make mention are the heat phenomena. 

"I have frequently seen Home, when in a trance, go 
to the fire and take out large red-hot coals, and carry 
them about in his hands, put them inside his shirt, etc. 
Eight times I have myself held a red-hot coal in my 
hands without injury, when it scorched my face on 
raising my hand. Once, I wished to see if they really 
would burn, and I said so, and touched the coal with 
the middle finger of my right hand, and I got a blister 
as large as a sixpence; I instantly asked him to give 
me the coal, and I held the part that burned me in the 
middle of my hand, for three or four minutes, without 
the least inconvenience.'" 

These facts are corroborated by other writers. An- 
other heat incident, throwing as it also does a side- 
light upon Home's own character, is most interesting. 

"Mr. Home again went to the fire, and, after stir- 
ring the hot coals about with his hand, took out a 
red-hot piece nearly as big as an orange, and, putting it 
on his right hand, covered it over with his left hand, so 
as to almost completely enclose it, and then blew into 
the small furnace thus extemporized until the lump of 
charcoal was nearly white-hot, and then drew my at- 
tention to the lambent flame which was flickering over 



Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 395. 
2 Quoted in the Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of 
the Dialectical Society, pp. 208-9. 



70 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

the coal and licking round his ringers ; he fell on his 
knees, looked up in a reverent manner, held up the 
coal in front, and said, 'Is not God good? Are not 
his laws wonderful ?' m 

It hardly seems as if Home would utter the abso- 
lutely unnecessary blasphemous mockery implied in his 
words if he knew that the phenomena he was producing 
were fraudulent. 

Several theories have been attempted to explain these 
heat phenomena "naturally," but even the opponents of 
spiritualism are forced to admit that none of the theo- 
ries cover all the evidence. It must be remembered 
that the coals were taken from the open grate in houses 
where Home would have no opportunity of "fixing" 
the coals in any way if any way were known to be pos- 
sible. Furthermore, Home seemed able to impart his 
strange power to other persons at will, the same persons 
being burned by the same coal when this power was 
withdrawn. In one instance mentioned by Sir William 
Crookes, Home placed a blazing piece of charcoal on 
a cambric handkerchief and fanned it to a white heat. 
Except for a tiny burned hole, the handkerchief was 
unharmed, and Sir William, after careful laboratory 
analysis of the handkerchief afterward, was unable to 
find any trace of special chemical or other preparation. 

As Sir William Crookes has noted, the evidence for 
the Home phenomena in quantity and quality is quite 
overwhelming. There remain a respectable number of 
scientists, entirely ignorant of this evidence, who airily 
or angrily deny. Those, like Mr. Podmore, who have 
examined it carefully, and yet are opposed to the whole 



Proceedings S. P. R., Vol. VI, p. 103. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 71 

spiritualistic hypothesis, are forced into unassenting 
silence. 

The reader may accept or not. If he does it may pre- 
dispose him to accept certain other phenomena much 
less spectacular and almost, if not quite, as well at- 
tested. If he does not it will still in no way endanger 
any constituent grounds for the solution of the main 
problem of a future life ; for, as has already been stated, 
these physical phenomena, true or false, are not vital 
to its solution. 



"I AM CONVINCED OF THE PERSISTENCE OF HUMAN 
EXISTENCE BEYOND BODILY DEATH." 

"If any one cares to hear what sort of conviction has been 
borne in upon my mind, as a scientific man, by twenty years' 
familiarity with these questions which concern us, I am 
willing to reply as frankly as I can. I am, for all personal 
purposes, convinced of the persistence of human existence 
beyond bodily death, and though I am unable to justify that 
belief in a full and complete manner, yet it is a belief which 
has been produced by scientific evidence that is based upon 
facts and experience." 

—Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S. 



n 




Sir Oliver Lodge 

Perhaps the most eminent English-speaking scholar in the investigation 
of psychical phenomena. 



CHAPTER IV 

EUSAPIA PALADINO: THE ITALIAN 
MEDIUM 

Spiritism seems to be no respecter of persons. The 
power of mediumship may come to a cultured uni- 
versity graduate like William Stainton Moees ; it may 
come to an ignorant Italian peasant woman like Eu- 
sapia Paladino. Imagine the latter, heavy featured 
except for her wonderful dark liquid eyes, never able to 
read or write, not able even to speak correct Italian, 
but using habitually a corruption of the Apulian 
dialect, but observed for years with interest, almost 
with awe, by the greatest scholars of Europe. 

Eusapia is a Neapolitan, born in 1854 at the tiny 
village of Minerno-Murge. Left as an orphan to the 
scant, if kindly, care of friends, while but a baby, she 
received an injury that may have something to do 
with her mediumistic powers. There is a marked de- 
pression in her head, the result of that early fall, and 
during the trance state a cool wind, which often ac- 
companies psychical phenomena, is felt to issue from 
this "opening." 

In the house of her peasant friends her powers first 
became manifest through the queer antics of furni- 
ture and bric-a-brac. But her rise in fame has been 
spectacular. The humble servant and saleswoman, 
turned out of her first employment for her ignorance 
73 



74 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

and laziness, is now the protegee of nobility — the Duke 
of the Abruzzi is among her patrons — and the confi- 
dante of scientists. Incidentally, her mediumship has 
made her wealthy. 

But she is still the peasant woman, her coarseness 
softened a little by suffering and by traces of the stress 
of many seances, her eyes sharpened a little with the 
native shrewdness of her class. Yet in appearance she 
is anything but striking; in temperament she is often 
peevish, sometimes malicious — sometimes exhibiting 
a certain pride and dignity. 

On one occasion, for instance, "she was staying 
with the Grand Dukes in Saint Petersburg: the Grand 
Duchess often sent for her to come and talk to her or 
keep her company in the drawing-room, but when 
visitors came she made an imperious sign, showing 
her the door. Twice Eusapia rather reluctantly 
obeyed, but at last she rebelled, and, planting herself 
in front of the princess, she said : 'Madame la Grande 
Duchesse, you doubtless mistake me for a basket which 
is carried to market when it is required, and left in a 
corner when it is done with. Either I shall remain in 
the drawing-room with all the visitors, or I shall leave 
the castle.' 

"And the princess by blood, not to discontent the 
princess of spiritism, consented that she should remain 
in the drawing-room." 1 

Considering her temperament, her lack of education, 
she is in truth hardly the person one would choose 
at random as the messenger with another world. Yet 



3 From a Biography of Eusapia Paladino, by Mme. Paola 
Carrara (the daughter of Lombroso). See the review in the 
Annals of Psychical Science^ v. 6, p. 217. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 75 

to this humble Neapolitan country woman seems vouch- 
safed a power that is revolutionizing psychical science 
and reviving the hopes of all humanity. 

The Beginning of Eusapia's Mediumistic Career 

Eusapia lacks initiative even in her spiritistic mani- 
festations. Her seance-room habits and conventions 
are the typical ones of spiritualism as it developed in 
this country, for it was to a Sig. Damiani, an ardent 
spiritist who had learned of American spiritualism 
while in England, that she owed her earliest develop- 
ment. He first became acquainted with her in 1872, 
discovered her mediumistic powers, and the ten years 
following were a period of slow development and 
locally increasing fame under his tuition. 1 

As far back as 1888, however, Eusapia had attracted 
the notice of a number of scientists, and already num- 
bered among her friends such men as Professor Chiaia, 
of Naples. Convinced himself of the genuineness of 
her phenomena, he endeavored to secure wider scien- 
tific cooperation in his investigations, especially that of 
his friend Lombroso, the eminent criminologist. Lom- 
broso had been openly and even contemptuously skep- 
tical of all psychic phenomena; and it was not till 
February, 1891, when Professor Chiaia's accounts of 
the alleged wonders had beeen corroborated by numer- 
ous others, that he consented to investigate for him- 
self. 

Of these first important sittings in Naples, M. Flam- 
marion, the noted French astronomer and author, is 



Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, p, 334. 



76 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

our chief chronicler. In fact, his book, Mysterious 
Psychic Forces, is mainly a record of these first for- 
mal investigations of Eusapia. 

The seances took place in a room chosen by Lom- 
broso himself in a local hotel, and the arrangements 
were entirely under his direction. Among those pres- 
ent, besides Lombroso, were Professors Gigli, Limon- 
celli and Vizioli, and M. Bianchi, then superintend- 
ent of the insane asylum at Sales. 

At their first seance several hours passed by without 
marked result, and, as is often the case, bade fair to be 
a failure. 

"But," says Flammarion, telling the story, "when 
MM. Limoncelli and Vizioli were taking leave, the 
medium being still seated and bound, and all of us 
standing around the table conversing . . . we heard 
noises in the alcove, and saw . . . the round table 
which was behind them slowly advancing toward Mme. 
Paladino, still seated and bound. 

"On seeing this strange, unexpected phenomena oc- 
cur in full light, we were all stupefied with amazement. 
M. Bianchi and M. Lombroso's nephew dashed into 
the alcove, under the impression that some person 
concealed there was producing the movement of the 
portieres and the round table. Their astonishment was 
unbounded when they ascertained that there was no 
one there, and that, under their very eyes, the table 
continued to glide over the floor in the direction of the 
medium." 1 

At another time says M. Flammarion : 

"I saw, and plainly saw, the rough deal table (a table 



'Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, pp. 148-9. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? TT 

a yard iong and nearly two feet wide and resting on 
four feet) rise up several times from the floor and, 
without any contact with visible objects, remain sus- 
pended in the air, several inches above the floor, dur- 
ing the space of two, three and even four seconds. 

"This experiment was renewed in full light without 
the hands of the medium and of the five persons who 
formed the chain about the table touching the latter 
in any way." 1 

Succeeding sittings of the Naples series gave fur- 
ther manifestations : the more common poltergeist phe- 
nomena — that is, the ringing of bells, the throwing of 
objects about the darkened seance room, twitchings of 
hair and beard, etc. — as well as the materialization of 
ghostly hands. So significant were the results ob- 
tained that Lombroso was forced to admit a growing 
confusion in his own mind, if not actual belief in these 
"occult" phenomena. "I regret," he wrote to a friend 
about this time, "that I combated with so much per- 
sistence the possibilities of the facts called spiritualis- 
tic." 

Lombroso's interest and provisional conversion were 
contagious. So great was the weight of his authority 
that other coteries of scientists were eager to investi- 
gate the pretensions of the Neapolitan peasant woman. 

Eusapia was at this time married and living humbly 
in a poorer quarter of Naples. With some reluctance 
she consented to new tests of her powers, concerning 
which, it may be noted here, she had no theories and 
even, it seemed, but little curiosity. 

She went to Milan, giving sittings there in the pri- 



^lammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 180. 



78 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

vate home of a M. Finzi. The sittings were again 
under the direct control of Lombroso himself, assisted 
by Dr. Ermacora, professor of natural philosophy at 
Milan University, and M. Gerosa, a physicist of inter- 
national repute. 

Every effort was made to obviate fraud in the 
medium and self-delusion in the investigators. The 
latter formed an imposing company, including, be- 
sides those named above, Charles du Prel, professor 
of philosophy at the University of Munich; Charles 
Richet, of Paris, an earnest and experienced student 
of psychic phenomena; Schiaparelli, director of the 
observatory at Milan; and M. Aksakof, councilor of 
state of the Emperor of Russia, and destined later to 
secure even more remarkable results from Eusapia. 

Yet these sittings were a complete success, resulting 
in the almost unqualified adherence of every member 
present to the astounding nature of the phenomena ob- 
served. 

In their efforts to secure material proof, attempts 
were made, and successfully, to photograph levitated 
tables as the latter floated without support in the air. 
Prints of "astral" (spirit?) hands were made on 
smoked paper prepared for the purpose; yet the me- 
dium's hands, examined immediately, were found free 
of any sign of soot. The medium herself was levitated 
and the spectral hands were seen on several occasions. 

As a variation of her ordinary experiments, Eusapia 
would project, without contact (that is, so she would 
assert), a force capable of making impressions in clay 
or plaster. 

"In full light," says M. Flammarion of another occa- 
sion, "Eusapia calls M. Morselli, and, controlled by 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 79 

the two persons next her, brings him with her toward 
the table, upon which is placed a mass of modeling 
plaster. She takes his open hand and pushes it three 
times toward the plaster, as if to sink the hand into 
it and leave upon it an impression. M. Morselli's hand 
remains at a distance of more than four inches from 
the mass; nevertheless, at the end of the seance, the 
experimenters ascertain that the lump of plaster con- 
tains the impression of three fingers — deeper prints 
than it is possible to obtain directly by means of volun- 
tary pressure." 1 

We are told that Eusapia's clay impressions are usu- 
ally profiles ; "these profiles have a certain resemblance 
to a Eusapia grown old, and in fact are said to be 
reproductions of the face of 'J onn King' [her control], 
her father in a former life." 2 

We have already noted the general impression made 
at this time upon the investigators. Lombroso was 
at least ready to admit the probability of the existence 
of hitherto unknown forces. 

M. Sully-Prudhomme, the famous poet and author, 
member of the French Academy and a witness some- 
what later of many of the phenomena under con- 
sideration, wrote: 

"My conviction is that I witnessed phenomena which 
I cannot relate to any ordinary physical law. My im- 
pression is that fraud, in any case, is more than im- 
probable — at least so far as concerns the displacement 
at a distance of heavy articles of furniture arranged 



^lammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, pp. 183-4. (The 
italics are mine.) 
* Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, p. 354. 



80 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

by my companions and myself. That is all that I can 
say about it." 1 

Enrico Morselli, professor of psychology at the Uni- 
versity of Genoa, believed most of the phenomena ob- 
served by him to be genuine ; and Dr. Porro, the noted 
astronomer, director in turn of the observatories at 
Genoa and Turin and of the National Observatory of 
the Argentine Republic, at La Plata, stated in a care- 
ful and detailed report : "The phenomena are real. 
They cannot be explained either by fraud or hallucina- 
tion." 2 

Morselli in May, 1907, reiterates the same view at 
greater length in a careful summing up of Eusapia's 
place in spiritualism : 

"There can no longer be any doubt as to the reality 
of Eusapia's phenomena. They have now been seen 
by too many persons under excellent conditions of 
verification, with the full certainty that the medium 
had not her hands and feet free, and that many of the 
phenomena occurred at a distance which excluded all 
possibility of deception; and there are now too many 
trustworthy men, accustomed to observe and experi- 
ment, who say that they have now become convinced 
that Eusapia's mediumship is genuine. 

"We have now got far beyond the time when her 
phenomena could be explained by the exchange of 
hands and feet in the dark ; the method of inquiry into 
her phenomena is very different. ... In fact, none 
of the most celebrated mediums are accredited by so 
many explicit declarations by scientific men of the 



^lammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 177. 
'Ibid., p. 178. 




Plaster Casts of Impressions in Clay- 
Produced at a distance by an unknown force. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 81 

foremost rank; no one, from Home and F. Cook on- 
ward, has allowed the introduction into the sittings 
of scientific instruments and methods with so much 
tolerance as Paladino." 1 

At the earlier date of which we are writing, how- 
ever, there still lurked with Charles Richet, the cau- 
tious, in common with the great majority even of the 
professed psychical researchers, a remnant of anti- 
mystical presupposition. 

"I laughed at Crookes and his experiments," wrote 
Richet; and this bias was hard to overcome. "Cer- 
tainty," he well says, "follows on habit rather than 
observation." He determined to subject Eusapia to 
even more rigid tests and more varied experiments. In 
his new studies Richet was joined by two eminent in- 
vestigators, Von Schrenck-Notzing and Siemiradski, 
of the French Institute; yet in their new investiga- 
tions — this was in 1894 — they could still find no trace 
of fraud, and manifestations occurred more wonder- 
ful than any that had preceded. 

Still unconvinced, however — for such is the strength 
of scientific doubt — Richet invited Eusapia to his own 
home. Here for three months the ignorant peasant 
woman dumfounded his expert scientific knowledge 
and met successfully every test imposed. "Alone with 
her and Ochorowicz [a noted psychologist], a man 
of penetrating perspicacity, I renewed my experiments 
in the best possible conditions of solitude and quiet 
reflection. We thus acquired," wrote Richet, "a posi- 
tive proof of the reality of the facts announced at 
Milan." 



x Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, pp. 328-9. 



82 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

It was natural, of course, that the English Society 
for Psychical Research should by this time have heard 
of and should have wished to investigate phenomena 
of such importance. Lengthy reports of her exploits 
had appeared in the most scholarly journals of France 
and Italy; the savants who had observed had utterly 
failed to find evidence of fraud, and were almost a 
unit in their acceptance of the phenomena. 

The Downfall of Eusapia in England 

After some delay, at the invitation of M. Richet, an 
English committee, consisting of Professor Oliver 
Lodge, Mr. Myers and Professor J. Ochorowicz, held 
sittings with Eusapia; and they, like all previous in- 
vestigators, became convinced of the genuineness of 
the phenomena she produced. These sittings were, 
however, strongly criticized by that militant critic, Dr. 
Hodgson, an expert in the detection of psychic fraud ; 
and finally, for his benefit, another series was held in 
Cambridge, England. 

Here he succeeded in discovering the medium in 
actual trickery, for the first time, but beyond ques- 
tion. Eusapia was consequently "immediately dropped 
by the society." "She had been detected in trickery," 
adds Mr. Carrington, summing up this controversy, 
"and, according to the standards of the society, that 
was enough to condemn her from future publicity, 
so far as they were concerned. . . . The continen- 
tal investigators, convinced that the medium did not 
always practise fraud of the kind discovered by Dr. 
Hodgson, continued their researches, and (apparently) 
showed that phenomena were produced when trickery 
was not possible — at least trickery of the sort Dr. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 83 

Hodgson detected. So strong was this new evidence, 
indeed, that Mr. Myers and Professor Lodge retracted 
their former beliefs, and became more than ever con- 
vinced that supernormal phenomena did occasionally 
happen in Eusapia's presence, while perfectly willing 
to admit that fraud had been practised at Cambridge, 
and would account for all the phenomena there wit- 
nessed. . . " x 

The case seemed at that time very evidently one 
where the unbiased investigator could not, although 
that would be of course the easy way, discard all the 
phenomena as fraudulent and worthless. He had still 
to weigh and "prove" (test). 

This was in fact the situation regarding Eusapia till 
as recently as two years ago. On the one hand she 
had been once convicted of deliberate fraud, giving, 
of course, a strong presumption that all her phenomena 
were fraudulent. She had been officially discredited 
by the foremost psychical society in the world, the 
English Society for Psychical Research; and among 
English-speaking scientists was generally believed a 
daring and skilful impostor. 

On the other hand there was the testimony of a 
hundred or more scholars and investigators of the first 
rank. There were the cases of Myers and Sir Oliver 
Lodge, actual witnesses of her fraud, and yet later 
reconverted to belief in her supernormal powers. There 
were the proofs of M. Flammarion, who, like Sir 
William Crookes, not satisfied with the evidence of 
his own eyes, on several occasions took photographs of 
tables levitated by the medium while they floated in 



Harrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. II, 13. 



84? ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

mid-air. 1 And there was finally a very striking test 
made some years before by M. Aksakoff , who "obtained 
a levitation, in the seances at Milan, after having tied 
Eusapia's feet with two strings, the ends of which 
were short and had been sealed to the floor very near 
each foot." 2 

Two years ago the student of mediumship might 
very well have said : "The truth of the matter prob- 
ably is that Eusapia has genuine powers ; but, when 
they are dormant and dilatory, she cannot resist the 
natural temptation 'to help the "spirits" along a little.' 
Were hers the only testimony we would be justified in 
throwing it all out of court ; having, however, evidence 
of genuine table levitation in other cases, we can but 
give an unbiased presentation of her case, mentioning 
it at all simply because of its wide notoriety and his- 
torical importance." 

But that was the situation two years ago. Since 
then she has given new proofs of her powers, so con- 
vincing in the nature of the tests imposed that it may 
be fairly said that a new era in psychic research has 
been inaugurated. 

There have been, as we have noted, a number of 
conventions in the conduct of the seance most irri- 
tating to those striving to obviate trickery : these con- 
ventions Eusapia has boldly defied. For instance, here- 
tofore the mystic phenomena could supposedly occur 
only in a darkened room: some of Eusapia's most 
wonderful manifestations have been in daylight or 



^hese were reproduced in his book. Though interesting, 
they were taken under circumstances too adverse (photograph- 
ically) to be conclusive. 

2 Flammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 156, footnote. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 85 

the full glare of electric light. The "influences" sup- 
posedly could not work away from their familiar 
haunts: Eusapia's greatest triumphs have been in the 
coldly unsympathetic interiors of physical laboratories 
surrounded by scientific precision instruments regis- 
tering with exactitude every phase of her manifesta- 
tions. The usual medium is able to work only in a 
secret cabinet and does not allow herself to be touched : 
Eusapia has effected wonders as great as any in the 
history of mediumship while her hands and feet were 
tightly held and without the aid of any cabinet what- 
ever. At last, and for the first time, we would seem 
to have psychic phenomena brought out from the baf- 
fling obscurity of mysticism, superstition — and fraud — 
into the dazzling white light of purely scientific test 
and observation — surely no inconsiderable achieve- 
ment! 

A New Series of Sittings in Genoa 

The climax of Eusapia's mediumship, the sittings 
held within the past year at Naples, were fittingly an- 
ticipated by series of most remarkable sittings held 
in Turin, Genoa and Milan. 

In 1905 Eusapia had spent a long visit in Paris, but 
with comparatively slight results. 

Returning to Italy, in the latter part of the same 
year, a new series was given in Milan before the local 
Societe d'Etudes Psychiques. This series was under 
the auspices of the Corriere delta Sera, an important 
daily newspaper of northern Italy, and under the direc- 
tion of such authorities as Lombroso and Fogazzaro. 
In 1892 the then proprietor of the Corriere had been 
instrumental in detecting Eusapia in gross fraud, name- 



86 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

ly that tricky releasing of a hand or foot from control 
that had killed her pretensions in England. At this 
time, however, Eusapia so far redeemed herself as to 
actually convert to spiritism the paper's present edi- 
tors. The reports of the Milan sittings were fea- 
tured in the Corriere, and, tho inconclusive, created no 
little comment. 1 

This Milan series was quickly overshadowed in im- 
portance, however, by the Genoa sittings, held under 
the direction of Dr. Henrico Morselli, of whom men- 
tion has already been made, the professor of psychiatry 
and neurology at the University of Genoa. Among 
his confreres were M. Bozzano, an expert in spiritistic 
investigation; a Dr. Venzano, M. Berisso, an artist, 
and his wife, at whose home the seances were held; 
and M. Barzini, editor of the Corriere della Sera. 

The medium, previous to the seance, was completely 
undressed and searched. During the sittings her hands 
and feet were carefully controlled. The room was 
lighted, adequately if feebly, by an alcohol lamp. To 
prevent the intrusion of a possible confederate the 
doors were sealed on the inside. 

At the very first seance there were remarkable ex- 
amples of levitation, apports 2 and materialization. For 
instance, says M. Barzini : 

"A big table weighing eighty pounds, standing in 
a corner by the window, on which we had placed cases 
containing photographic plates, frames, a metronome, 
. . . a dynamometer and other objects, approached 



3 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. up. 

2 " Apports" are articles suddenly introduced into the seance 
room by the medium with no visible origin ; in other words, 
matter apparently spontaneously created from thin air. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 87 

us, then withdrew again. A frame came and lay in 
my hand. Suddenly our plates were thrown on the 
ground; the frames followed them. Dr. Morselli was 
fearing for the fate reserved for his metronome when 
we heard it mysteriously set going and ticking regular- 
ly. A few moments later the machinery was stopped, 
resumed its movement and was again stopped. . . . 
Metronomes are not in the habit of doing this on their 
own account: the experience elicited exclamations of 
surprise from us." At once the metronome, "doubt- 
less feeling flattered," as Barzini humorously says, 
jumped blithely of its own accord over on to the table 
before the medium "and began cheerily to beat time'' 
there. All this happened in a good light. 1 

At the second seance Professor Morselli had hung 
two photographic plates on sticks tied to the back of 
Eusapia's chair. These were to register possible radia- 
tions emanating from the medium. During the seance 
they heard "a delicate and restrained sound" behind 
the medium. Upon looking they saw to their aston- 
ishment that the knots fastening the vertical sticks to 
the chair were slowly untying themselves. The blue 
and white strings, plainly seen, were "patiently un- 
done" by invisible fingers. Then, to complete the won- 
der, the photographic frames did not fall when loose, 
but gently floated away into the cabinet. 2 

At this seance, too, there was an excellent example 
of what is often referred to as "bulgings" of the cabi- 
net curtain. So clear is M. Barzini's description of 



Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 122. 
'Ibid, p. 123. 



88 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

this case — a typical one — that it is worth repeating 
verbatim. 

"Dr. Morselli felt himself touched in several places 
by the moving curtain. He thought he observed be- 
hind the curtain the presence of a complete human 
form, whose body leaned against his, the arms pressing 
against him; we all saw the arms wrapped round by 
the curtain. 

"I got up suddenly, drawing the medium against 
me, and I put my head between the opening of the cur- 
tains to look into the cabinet. . . . It was empty. 
Professor Morselli felt behind the curtain at the spot 
where it bulged out, and was assured that it was empty. 
What, from the outside, appeared to be a moving hu- 
man body covered by the curtain, was, on the inside, a 
cavity in the stuff, an empty mold. 

"It reminded one of Wells' Invisible Man. I then 
wished to touch the bulging part of the curtain on the 
outside . . . and I encountered the effectual re- 
sistance of a living head. I distinguished the fore- 
head, I moved the palm of my hand downward on to 
the cheeks and on the nose, and when I touched the 
lips the mouth opened and seized me under the thumb ; 
/ distinctly felt the strain of a clean bite. At the same 
moment a hand pressed against rny chest and pushed 
me back, the curtains swelled out and fell back inert. 
All this time the medium remained in view." 1 

At the third seance Professsor Morselli caught 
Eusapia in her usual fraud. She had, unnoticed for a 
moment by him, released her left hand and was reach- 



^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 120-5. The italics 
are mine. 










5W 



EU 
>4i >. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 89 

ing toward a trumpet which they had laid on the table. 
He immediately cried in warning to the others "E. T. 
V.!" [a prearranged signal of detected trickery], and 
seized her hand again. Eusapia understood his cryptic 
"E. T. V.," however, and said sadly : "Don't say that !" 
Of course all the party at once redoubled the closeness 
of their watch upon her. Now comes the remarkable 
part, as Barzini says. "At this moment, while the 
control was certainly more rigorous than ever, the 
trumpet was raised from the table and disappeared 
into the cabinet. . . . Evidently the medium had 
attempted to do with her hand what she subsequently 
did mediumistically." 1 

This example of fraud would seem, if anything, to 
strengthen Eusapia's position. If we are to believe a 
hundred reliable witnesses in thousands of instances 
her trickery is unnecessary. "Such a futile and fool- 
ish attempt at fraud is," as Barzini says, "inexplica- 
ble." Unless, as perhaps it is, it is actually involuntary. 

Lombroso, after remarking that Eusapia "often lacks 
common sense, but she has an intuition and intelligent 
subtlety which contrast with her lack of culture," adds : 
"Ingenuous to such a degree that she lets herself be 
imposed upon and taken in by any intriguer, she yet 
sometimes — before and during the trance — shows a 
degree of cunning which often amounts to deceit. 
Thus on one occasion she was seen to pull out a hair 
in order to place it on the plate of a little balance in 
such a way as to depress it ; another time she was sur- 
prised while secretly getting some flowers to simulate 



^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 208. 



90 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

an apport and forming of her handkerchief with her 
hands some mannikins to represent phantoms." 

Why should she attempt to do these things fraudu- 
lently when she has apparently proved again and again 
her ability to do them genuinely? Why, indeed? 

At the fourth seance there were two especially re- 
markable levitations. "The table rose in the air to 
the height of our shoulders, completely isolated, and 
while Dr. Venzano counted the seconds aloud, so as 
to time the duration of the phenomenon, the table 
marked each second as it was counted by raising and 
lowering one of its ends. . . . As we followed the 
count of seconds we were amazed at its length. But 
the table evidently felt some pride in its performance, 
as it continued pluckily; when sixty seconds had been 
counted, the table fell back to the ground. . . ." 1 

A little later it went up again, floating this time 
seventy-eight seconds, which may be said to break the 
levitation record ! 

In fact, at this sitting, the psychic forces, whatever 
they might be, appeared to be especially obliging. 

"Unknown to the others," continues the record, "Dr. 
Morselli had brought with him a piece of string, about 
sixteen inches long ; this he laid on the table. The 
string disappeared, then came back, wagging like the 
tail of an animal. The professor examined it and then 
said, in a tone of disappointment '. . . I wanted 
to see it knotted.' " It evidently had not understood 
what was expected of it ; but, as Barzini says, 'it was 
not lacking in good will,' for it at once mysteriously 



1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 210-11. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 91 

vanished, only to reappear instantaneously shortly after 
with three neat knots tied in it at regular intervals. 1 

There were numerous materializations, especially of 
hands and of shadowy and more or less vaporous ap- 
pearances. Sometimes these were felt ; occasionally the 
experimenters were able to clasp the etheric members. 
"The feeling," says M. Barzini, ". . . was very 
curious ; they did not escape from my grasp ; they dis- 
solved, so to speak. They slipped out of my hands 
as if they had collapsed. They seemed like hands thai 
had very rapidly melted and dissolved, after manifest- 
ing a high degree of energy, and an absolutely life-like 
appearance while performing actions." 2 

The First Turin Seances 
Shortly after the Genoa sittings, in February, 1906, 
Lombroso held a new series with Eusapia, this time 
in Turin. The company present was a representative 
one: Drs. Imoda and Audenino, assistants to Prof. 
Lombroso; M. Pomba, an engineer; Count Guy Bor- 
relli; two lawyers, M. Maris and M. Jacques Bar- 
baroux; M. Emile Barbaroux; Dr. Joseph Roasenda; 
Dr. Norlenghi, a member of the municipal council of 
Turin; Professor Jannacone, of the University of 
Turin; M. Bocca, a publisher; two ladies, one an 
American, and Sig. Mucchi, a newspaper man. The 
sittings were held, this time not at a private house, but 
in the psychiatrical laboratory of the university. Every 
precaution was taken to obviate fraud ; although "none 



1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 211. 
2 From the report by M. Barzini in the Corriere delta Sera, 
of Milan. Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 210. 



92 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

of the most important phenomena which occurred," 
says Sig. Mucchi in his report, "left room for the 
slightest suspicion of trickery. They were all of such 
a kind that they could not be imitated even by the 
cleverest jugglery." Moreover, this time the room 
was lit by electric light I 1 

Manifestations began almost immediately. "A cold 
wind came from behind the curtain, which suddenly 
opened as if it had been opened by two hands. A hu- 
man head came out, with a pale, haggard face, of sin- 
ister evil aspect. It lingered a moment and then dis- 
appeared." 2 

A moment later "a woman's small hand . . . 
reappeared near the curtain, seized one of the feet of 
the footstool, and pushed it. Sig. Mucchi broke the 
chain [of hands] and, by a rapid action, seized the 
warm hand, which at once seemed to dissolve and dis- 
appeared." 3 

At the close of the seance the reporter placed his 
hand on the deep scar which the medium has on the 
left side of her head and felt a cold, strong, continuous 
breeze issuing from it, like a human breath. He sub- 
sequently felt the same cold breeze issuing, though 
less strongly, from the tips of her fingers. 

It was at the third sitting that Dr. Mucchi became 
involved in a weird struggle with the invisible entities 
that seemed to be at work around them. A mass of* 
clay had been placed within the cabinet in the hope 
that Eusapia might be able to produce some of her 



'■Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 305. 
Hbid., p. 306. 
3 Ibid., p. 306. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE?, 93 

inexplicable molds therein. After some waiting they 
were told "typtologically" — that is, by rappings with- 
in the table — "The impression is made." 

Eager to view the result, Dr. Mucchi rose and went 
toward the cabinet. "I was about to enter," he says 
". . . but was repelled by two hands made of noth- 
ing. I felt them; they were agile and prompt; they 
seised me and pushed me back. The struggle lasted 
for some time; the hands seemed to take pleasure in 
resisting me ; they pushed me back if I tried to enter, 
and pulled me forward if I retired. I ended by seiz- 
ing the lump of clay . . ." whereupon "they thrust 
me out with a violent shove that nearly upset every- 
thing. There were observable on the clay two or three 
impressions such as might be made by a closed fist." 1 

Was there ever a stranger combat? A strong man 
in a desperate physical struggle with — thin air ! In- 
explicable, you may say, nay, impossible! Yet there 
was an abundant if dim electric light: Dr. Mucchi is 
a skilled observer: this phenomena is of a piece with 
scores of well-authenticated other instances. Surely 
the thing cannot be airily smiled away. 

A little later a mandolin lying on the table in the 
plain sight of every one played of itself; the strings 
throbbing separately or in unison without any visible 
cause. "One of us was asked to play on the medium's 
fingers as if they were a mandolin ; a string sounded 
in correspondence with each touch, and if the touch 
was vague the sound was incomplete or strident." But 
the still was not all. Shortly afterward "a hand, 
which suddenly materialized, seized the instrument by 



^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 309. 



94. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

the handle and placed it on the shoulder of the player, 
and there, under his very nose, the strings shook and 
twanged." Then "the hand dissolved and disap- 
peared." 1 

At both the third and fourth sittings appeared an- 
other example of that, even with Eusapia, rare phe- 
nomena, what appeared to be a materialized head. It 
acted as though it were one known to Pomba, the 
engineer : reaching out from the curtain its two hands, 
it held him with a caressing gesture while it kissed 
him. This appearance was seen by all present, being 
plainly visible, though at no time sharply defined. It 
seemed indeed to be continually varying in size, dimin- 
ishing and increasing visibly, "so that sometimes it 
appeared to be that of an adult, sometimes that of a 
child. It was evidently subject to the variations of 
the emission of the mediumistic force . . '. the 
medium seemed more fatigued when the head was 
more largely developed." 2 

But, alas for the easy path toward complete belief, 
again there was a brazen example of trickery. One 
of the most astounding phenomena of the Genoa sit- 
tings had been a registration of 242 pounds pressure 
on a dynamometer, showing a greater strength than 
that exerted by the strongest man. Who or what 
could have so powerfully affected the instrument? 

This time the invisible fingers at work on the in- 
strument were observed more carefully, and "John" 
was caught tampering with the needle in an unusually 
clever way. 3 



1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 310. 
i Ibid., p. 313. *Ibid., pp. 311-12. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 95 

Yet alas too for the decryer of all these phenomena, 
for he must admit: 

1. That apparently invisible -fingers were perform- 
ing the trick! 

2. That strength pressures of nearly 150 pounds 
were exerted time and again in the production of levi- 
tations which the witnesses claimed were indisputable. 

Truly it is a tangled thread to unsnarl. 1 

The Second Turin Seances 

So suggestive had these Turin sittings been, so im- 
portant the results obtained, that they had hardly been 
finished ere Eusapia was prevailed upon to give a sup- 
plementary series in the same place. The latter sit- 
tings were under the auspices of Drs. Amedeo Herlitz- 
ka, Carlo Foa and Alberta Aggazotti, all professors 
in the University of Turin and assistants of the famous 
psychologist, Professor Mosso, all comparatively 
young men, but all enthusiastic, if cold-blooded, re- 
searchers in laboratory science, absolutely devoid of 
anything like superstition, and considering poor Eu- 
sapia merely as a case in abnormal psychology, whose 
strange manifestations must be weighed and dissected 
in the interests of pure science. 

Imagine the sensation that set half Europe on the 
qui vive when these researchers prefaced the careful 
report resulting with these words: "The conditions 
under which the seances occurred are of a nature to 
afford peculiar guarantees that we were the victims 
neither of fraud, nor of clever charlatans, nor of hal- 



Tor a detailed account of the first Turin sittings see the 
report by Sig. Mucchi in La Stampa, a Milanese journal. See 
also the Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 305-14. 



96 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

lucination." Nay, rather the phenomena seemed to 
them inexplicably but most wonderfully genuine; and 
they said with convincing boldness : "Now that we are 
persuaded of the authenticity of the phenomena, we 
feel it our duty to state the fact publicly in our turn, 
and to proclaim that the few pioneers in this branch 
of biology (destined to become one of the most im- 
portant) generally saw and observed correctly." 1 

They, like the other scientists, preferred the evidence 
of exact instruments to that even of their own eyes 
and ears. Hence the presence of a dynamometer, a 
revolving self-registering cylinder connected electric- 
ally with a switch, and photographic plates wrapped in 
light-proof paper. Besides the experimenters there 
were present only Count Verdun, in whose house the 
seances took place, Dr. Imoda, the Chevalier Rostain 
and "a lady." The first sitting, as is generally the 
case, was comparatively lacking in interest, though 
there was considerable poltergeist phenomena; but at 
the second, at which a Dr. Arullani had been added 
to the company, occurred one of the most remarkable 
happenings in the history of spiritualism. 

Toward the middle of the evening there had been a 
number of remarkable levitations, "table No. i" having 
floated high in the air, over the heads, indeed, of some 
of the company, also turning itself over. "Table No. 
i" was described as "a strong table of white wood, 
about two feet nine inches high and three feet long by 
twenty-two inches broad, weighing seventeen pounds." 
When it had seemed to quiet down for a moment, Dr. 
Arullani, who was especially skeptical, approached it to 



'The italics are mine. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 97 

examine it closely ; but "the piece of furniture, moving 
violently toward him, repulsed him." 1 

A moment later the medium announced quietly in 
her natural voice: "I am going to break the table." 
". . . All those who were on the left of the medium 
could observe, by a very good red light, the various 
movements of the table. The latter bent down and 
passed behind the curtain, followed by one of us (Dr. 
Carlo Foa), who saw it turn over, and rest on one of 
its two short sides, while one of the legs of the table 
came off violently, as if under the action of some 
force pressing upon it. At this moment, the table 
came violently out of the cabinet and continued to 
break up under the eyes of every one present; at first 
its different parts were torn off, then the boards them- 
selves went to pieces. Two legs which still remained 
united by a thin slip of wood floated above us and 
placed themselves on the seance table." 2 

Of this astounding phenomena there can seem to 
be, from the evidence, no question. The table cer- 
tainly existed, and after the seance was over was found 
"broken into . . . pieces of various sizes." 3 Nor is 
there any doubt about its breaking: "the nails were 
torn out, the rivets and boards were broken." 4 It hap- 
pened "in the midst of many witnesses, under good 
. . . light. The medium was most carefully controlled 
— during the occurrence of the most important phe- 
nomena, Eusapia's legs were placed horizontally on our 
knees." 4 



1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 378-9. 

s Ibid.,p. 379. *Ibid., p. 383. 'Ibid., p. 385. 'Ibid., pp. 378-9. 



98 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Furthermore, the strength required literally to pull 
to pieces such a table is enormous, greater in fact than 
most men could exert, to say nothing of Eusapia. 

But what did rend that table ? The investigators in 
this case admit candidly their complete mystification. 




Dr. Pio Foa 



Professor of Pathologic Anatomy, University of Turin, and a student 
for many years of mediumistic phenomena. 



"I AM CONVINCED THAT AFTER DEATH MAN DOES 
NOT PERISH ENTIRELY." 

I am convinced that after death man does not perish en- 
tirely; all of his individuality is not destroyed; his more noble 
and spiritual qualities persist in another life, higher and more 
comprehensive. It is a life which we do not know as yet, but 
which is revealed to us by an inner consciousness. The Bible 
and the sacred books speak to us of that other life, describing 
it in a language so picturesque and sincere that millions of 
men have believed that they were dictated to us by some 
one who must know perfectly the life beyond the grave. Man- 
kind has universally attributed these pages to divine origin, 
and has believed them to be a revelation made by God to man. 



The moment we admit the probability of man's sur- 
vival after death we must also face the possibility of the doc- 
trine of spiritualism — that is, that it is possible that we are 
surrounded, in the air, by spirits or beings, their pure essence, 
which under special conditions may be able to manifest them- 
selves to us. The question becomes one of sufficient impor- 
tance to be worthy of scientific study and research. Thus wo 
have to-day such men as Lombroso, Pio Foa, Richet, Flam- 
marion, Sardou, Crookes, Stead and others, who are bringing 
all their intelligence to bear to try to investigate and deter- 
mine the nature of the force possessed by some individuals 
of moving objects at a distance without contact, and of cer- 
tain other mediumistic phenomena, materializations princi- 
pally. 

Personally, I have made a long series of investigations with 
the celebrated medium, Eusapia Paladino, who is a Neapolitan 
in origin. These experiments were made under strictly scien- 
tific conditions, with the assistance of Drs. Galeotti, de Amicis, 
Lombardi, and a few other eminent men, professors in the Uni- 



100 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

versity of Naples. The question is most complex ana difficult 
to solve. 

Up to the present time I would not say that we have suffi- 
cient proof to determine exactly the nature of these forces, or 
of the phenomena, if you prefer. But they exist and are 
real. That has been attested to so many times, by men of 
unimpeachable probity, that they are no longer to be denied. 
I know there are those who claim that Eusapia Paladino is 
a charlatan and a fraud, and that all of the scientific men are 
mere dupes. But those assertions are made by people who have 
never assisted at her seances. On my own account I can state 
that with me Eusapia has never resorted to tricks. I have seen 
a table, which was placed a yard away from the medium, 
moved about in broad daylight without being touched by 
any one. I have seen my own eye-glasses, which I wear 
without a string, picked up by an invisible hand when they 
had fallen on the floor, and placed gently on my nose again. 
I have seen a little lock of hair placed so softly on the table 
before us, by a force invisible, that we were not aware of 
what was being done until we saw it lying there. We have 
requested that flowers be placed on the table, and at a given 
moment they appeared on a whatnot, four feet away from 
the medium. The same nosegay I saw pass caressingly over 
the face of one of the scientists present, and pose itself on 
his knee. Twice I have seen a dark form, which might be a 
head, appear behind the head of Eusapia, when she was in a 
trance state. Gradually the form became lighter, pale, and 
then as if illuminated. Some one asked the medium who 
it was, and she answered in a feeble voice, "It is Peppino." 
Another time Eusapia applied her forehead to mine, at the 
same time saying, "Look!" And we saw a human head, very 
pale, but clearly illuminated, appear behind her own. 

But I could go on indefinitely talking of my experiments 
with this medium, which have extended over a number of 
years. I quite understand that to the uninitiated much of 
this seems too strange for belief, and that only those who 
have had the experiences can really conceive of their reality. 

And as for the explanation of these manifestations, that will 
be for coming generations to solve. — Filippo Botazri. 



CHAPTER V 

THE LATER MEDIUMSHIP OF EUSAPIA 
PALADINQ 

While recent enthusiasm over Eusapia was still at 
white heat, Bottazzi and Galeotti, the one of the depart- 
ment of physics, the other professor of general path- 
ology, at the University of Naples, the medium's na- 
tive city, determined on a new series of sittings. These 
were not so much for the purpose of imposing ad- 
ditional tests; for by this time the great majority of 
Italian investigators had come to consider fraud a dis- 
missed solution: but it was hoped that with increased 
knowledge of conditions favorable to mediumistic 
manifestation new and perhaps more startling data 
might be secured. In this they were not disappointed. 

Bottazzi's introduction is a model of scientific cau- 
tion. "Barzini's descriptions were excellent," he 
writes, "but we wanted documents and proofs. So 
many, however, had already seen these, and yet had 
doubted; we ought to be able to furnish evidence 
analogous to that given in our scientific publications." 

"Everything must be registered by writing and 

photography, i.e., all that can be registered. Will she 

be able to impress a photographic plate? Will she be 

able to illuminate a screen treated with platino-cyanide 

101 



102 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

of barium? Will she be able to discharge a gold-leaf 
electroscope without touching it?" 1 

M. Bottazzi appreciated fully the vital weakness in 
the usual testimony of the seance. "To assert," he 
says, "that Mr. X., being present at a particular seance, 
heard a touch upon a .telegraphic key which had been 
placed in the cabinet out of reach of the medium's 
visible hand, is obviously less valuable than to be able 
to show the incredulous public a graphic tracing of 
the movements of the electro-magnetic needle, connect- 
ed with the keyboard, recorded on a sheet of smoked 
paper at a considerable distance from the medium. 
For it is always possible to suggest that Mr. X. was 
the victim of hallucination. 

"It will not avail to add that the sounds were heard 
by all those present. The obstinately incredulous will 
reply: 'That may be; but it was a case of collective 
hallucination.' " 2 

Nor was the data in this way secured insufficiently 
scrutinized or carelessly collated. 

"I wrote the detailed account of the phenomena 
which occurred during each seance," says Bottazzi, 
"sometimes on the same night, or else the following 
morning; and it is from these accounts, after I had 
interrogated my friends on certain doubtful or con- 
troverted points, that this report has been written with 
a calm and collected mind." 3 

How far Bottazzi's mental attitude differed from 
that of the professed spiritualist is significantly shown 
by the phrase with which he opens the report of each 



1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 151. 
*Ibid„ p. 261. "Ibid., p. 267 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 103 

seance. It is a statement of religious theorizing or 
sentimental -hapsody ? Not exactly. He begins thus : 



"First Seance (April lyth, 1907). 

"Barometric pressure at 9 p.m. : 760.79 mm. ; tem- 
perature, 9.7 Cent." 1 

And this cold, precise exactitude, it may be noted 
here, is matched in much of the recent work with 
Eusapia. Listen, for instance, to a sample of Lom- 
broso's description of the medium herself: is there 
any trace here of emotionalism or mysticism? 

Eusapia has, he says, "a stenocrotaphy — that is to 
say, the bizygomatic diameter of her head is larger than 
the frontal one (127 to 113); a dolichocephaly (73), 
which, however, is ethnic ; a head of small circumfer- 
ence (530) ; an asymmetry in the cranium as well as 
in the face, the right side being more developed. The 
left eye presents the Claude Bernard-Horner phenome- 
non, as in the case of epileptics. The eyes are choroec- 
topic above and within, and react only feebly to light, 
but have good power of accommodation," etc., etc. 2 

Nor were the assistants invited by Bottazzi required 
to have spiritualistic leanings or even knowledge. On 
the other hand, "It was thought advisable to choose 
sitters quite new to mediumistic seances . . . per- 
sons whose scientific prestige was indisputable." 3 

Eusapia's new inquisition, if we may call it that, 
showed, therefore, some new names, but those equally 
distinguished in scientific circles. Besides Galeotti 



1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 271. 
'Ibid., pp. 167-8. 3 Ibid., p. 153. 



104. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

and Bottazzi, there were M. Luigi Lombardi and Dr. 
Scarpa, both professors in the electrical department of 
the Naples Polytechnic High School ; Dr. T. de Amicis, 
a physician and professor of dermatology in the Uni- 
versity of Naples ; and Dr. Pansini, a noted expert in 
medical semeiotics; Emanuele Jona, an engineer, and 
president of the Italian Electro-technical Association ; 
the venerable Senator Antonio Cardarelli, professor of 
clinical medicine at the university; and Nicola Minu- 
tillo, instructor in Roman law. Only a part of these 
persons were present at all the seances. 

The experiments took place in a room forming part 
of the physiological laboratories of the university. The 
walls were bare of curtain or ornament: the furniture 
the simplest: the cabinet, which Eusapia was not even 
allowed to touch, was one improvised by Bottazzi him- 
self. "Although she approached it, . . . and felt 
impelled several times to touch the outside of the cur- 
tain, she never," he says, "put her hand into the cabinet, 
and never examined the interior of it, either before or 
during a seance." 1 

At all sittings her hands and feet were held contin- 
uously by two or more of the party, wary of the slight- 
est suspicious movement, and cognizant of every 
tremor, even, that she might make. Moreover, even 
in the selection and disposition of the scientific appa- 
ratus, effort was made to assure a minimum of oppor- 
tunity for fraud. "The receiving instruments which 
were to be put in motion, and the surface on which 
they rested, were generally, after the first seance, so 
firmly fixed, that, in spite of all her efforts, Paladino 



1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 268. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 105 

could scarcely even move them. ... I passed the 
electric wire and the tubes through holes made in the 
wood," says Bottazzi, "or I arranged them so that 
they only passed over a very small portion of the sur- 
face." 1 

"The mediumistic chain was not always strictly 
maintained. In addition to two breaks demanded by 
Eusapia, Bottazzi, Galeotti and Scarpa frequently rose 
from their seats and left the room, either to put the 
cylinders in motion in the neighboring room, or to 
look for some string, asked for by Eusapia, or for 
some other reason. 

"Our seances have always been accompanied by a 
certain amount of movement on the part of those 
present; a convinced spiritist who was present at the 
seventh seance was scandalized by it ; but this was very 
natural. Spiritists attend with their souls already at- 
tuned to admiration; their faith is absolute (so much 
the better for them and such as they), and nothing 
disturbs them. We, on the contrary, were disturbed 
by doubts, and I am not even now, as I write, free from 
them, after seven seances in which I have seen the oc- 
currence of phenomena in which fraud could play no 
part." 2 

"Often, Mme. Paladino, when completely entranced, 
was not satisfied with the contact of only two con- 
trollers, but she asked in a faint voice for the hand of 
another neighboring sitter, or she desired that a hand 
should be placed on her knees, and that she might lay 
her forehead on the head of one of the controllers." 8 



1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 269-70. 
2 fbi'd, pp. 378-9. *fbid., p. 380. 



106 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

We cannot follow those momentous sittings in detail, 
but merely outline briefly a few of the more wonderful 
phenomena that occurred. We must remember that 
even the simplest poltergeist manifestations that oc- 
curred — the shaking of the table, the setting in motion 
of a metronome, the throwing of small objects about 
the room spontaneously, the beating of a drum — even 
these phenomena are wonderful enough when we con- 
sider the rigidity of the tests imposed by these zealous 
but skeptical savants. "We obliged her to do things 
she had never done before," says Bottazzi naively ; and 
surely they did ! 

The Startling Materializations Produced at Naples 

But these phenomena sank into comparative insig- 
nificance, for, at the third sitting, in plain sight, a small 
table rose spontaneously and floated in midair, while, 
as Bottazzi notes, "we watched it in amazement" ; and, 
at this same seance, at which Mme. Bottazzi was pres- 
ent, a great black hand and arm crept slowly out from 
behind the curtain of the cabinet, lightly touched Mme. 
Bottazzi, who happened to be nearest, frightening her 
severely, then apparently dissolved into thin air. 

Here was a phenomenon which defied explanation, 
which dazed belief. Imagine the impression it made 
on these sober, hard-headed men of science, apparently 
face to face with what an hour before they might well 
have called "impossible." 

"We felt the sensation as of contact with a real hand," 
says Bottazzi, reporting the phenomenon, "bony, nerv- 
ous, often neither hot nor cold, but sometimes hot; a 
hand, in fact, of flesh and bones and blood. To whom 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 107 

does this hand belong, which is generally encountered 
more than half a yard away from the medium's head, 
and while her visible hands are rigorously controlled by 
her two neighbors? 

"Is it the hand of a monstrous long arm which liber- 
ates itself from the medium's body, then dissolves, to 
'materialize' afresh afterward? 

"Is it something analogous to the pteropod of an 
amceba, which projects itself from the body, then re- 
treats into it and appears again in another place? 

"Mystery I" 1 

At a later sitting this same great black hand came 
out from the curtain and gently grasped Bottazzi by 
the nape of the neck. At this seance, Dr. Porro, the 
astronomer, was present. "Letting go Professor Por- 
ro's hand," says Bottazzi (Porro was next him in the 
circle), "I felt for this ghostly hand and clasped it. 
It was a left hand, neither hot nor cold, with rough, 
bony fingers, which dissolved under pressure. It did 
not retire by producing a sensation of withdrawal ; it 
dissolved, dematerialized, melted." 

These astral hands — "etheric hands" is the term 
Lombroso uses to describe them — are not always visi- 
ble; yet they would seem to be the active instruments 
in the production of the poltergeist phenomena. A 
mandolin plays itself; the keys of a typewriter strike 
of themselves spontaneously; an invisible something 
ripples over the keys of a piano ; an electric light switch 
is closed repeatedly (a switch several feet from Eu- 
sapia, while her limbs are carefully controlled) ; a tiny 
electric dynamo is wound up and set going ; a vase of 



3 l Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 285-6. 



108 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

flowers is transported about the room. These things 
happen, are attested to by unimpeachable witnesses. 
What causes them? "Astral hands?" Hands formed 
of some substance of which we know nothing, shot out 
from the body of the medium at will in different direc- 
tions and at lightning speed? 

"What a colossal fabrication!" the reader may ex- 
claim. "Why, that's absolutely impossible !" 

Impossible? The scientist is coming to the point 
where he no longer dares call anything "impossible." 
Impossible? when these pseudo limbs have been seen 
and handled, not once, but repeatedly ! 

Dr. Giuseppe Venzano saw a monstrous, shadowy 
arm spring out spontaneously from Eusapia's shoulder 
and grasp a glass of water ; three other scientists pres- 
ent simultaneously witnessed the same thing. 

"At another time," says Bottazzi, "later on, the same 
hand [the black hand of which mention has already 
been made] was placed on my right forearm — I saw 
a human hand, this time of natural color, and I felt 
with mine the back of a lukewarm hand, rough and 
nervous. The hand dissolved (I saw it with my own 
eyes) and retreated as if into Mme. Paladino's body, 
describing a curve." 1 

Is there anything hesitating or equivocal about that 
statement? Bottazzi saw it, and, lest he alone might 
have been deceived, a dozen others saw similar phe- 
nomena. 

Fontenay gives a more detailed and significant de- 
scription of these materialized hands in their typical 
form. "The materialization was incomplete," he says, 



1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 413. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 109 

"or seemed so to me. It did not appear very solid, and, 
although the apparition was very rapid, it seemed to 
me that the fingers were not all distinct and separate 
from each other. I had the impression of an enormous 
crab's claw rather than of a real hand. Imagine a 
lined mitten, or rather a very large hand, of which the 
thumb and forefinger were pressed together, and the 
three other fingers also pressed together. 

"This apparition was seen and described as I have 
just described it, with very slight variations, by the 
majority of those present." 1 

The hands, we are told, were of various sizes, some 
gigantic in dimensions, some normal; and lest there 
be any mistake about their objective reality, Bottazzi 
had photographs taken of them. 2 

On another occasion, near the close of a sitting, the 
cabinet was opened somewhat inadvertently, and the 
ghostly fragments of arms and legs were found lying 
inside. 

"The apparitions, or materializations," says Bottazzi, 
at another tme, "were numerous and multiple. . . . 
I saw hands and closed fists appear over Mme. Pala- 
dino's head, in the opening between the curtains ; some- 
times they were of ordinary size, at others at least 
three times larger than Mme. Paladino's hand and fist. 
Twice I advanced my hand rapidly to seize them, chief- 
ly because those farthest off affirmed that these were 
objects presented by the usual invisible hand; but I 



Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, p. 182. 
*Some of similar photographs of "materialized hands" are 
reproduced in this volume. 



110 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

was always too late; the apparition dissolved, and I 
found the space vacant." 1 

At the eighth sitting Ensapia was controlled in a way 
that would seem to destroy any lingering shred of an 
opportunity for fraud. Heavy cords were bound tight- 
ly about her wrists, these were led through iron rings 
sunk in the floor, and the ends sealed with lead seals, 
similar to those used in this country to secure the 
doors of freight cars. Tightly bound as she was, so 
tightly bound as to be hardly able to move, other pre- 
cautions were not relaxed in the slightest. Yet, for- 
tunately for the adherents of spiritualism, there were 
continued levitations and striking materializations of 
Eusapia's astral limbs. 

Galeotti, who happened to be holding Eusapia's right 
arm, suddenly cried: "I see two left arms identical 
in appearance. One is on the little table, and it is 
that which Mme. Bottazzi touches. [Mme. Bottazzi 
was "controlling" the medium on the other side.] The 
other seems to come out of the medium's shoulder, to 
approach and touch Mme. Bottazzi, and then return 
and melt into the medium's body again. This is not 
an hallucination. I am awake. I am conscious of two 
simultaneous visual sensations, which I experience 
when Mme. Bottazzi says she has been touched." 2 

Another remarkable phenomenon in connection with 
Eusapia's manifestations of which mention should be 
made was the strange lights which appeared. In the 
fourth sitting, simultaneously with the materializations, 

^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 383-4. 
'Ibid., p. 422. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Ill 

little curling tongues of flame, pale mauve in color, had 
floated across the curtains of the cabinet. 

At other times these flames appeared above Eusapia's 
head. "They seemed to me," says Bottazzi, "like little 
flames, in size like those of an ordinary candle, but 
shorter and not of yellow light, but rather violet, more 
luminous in the center, more attenuated at the 
periphery; they seemed to disengage themselves from 
the body of the medium, then rose with a slow, undu- 
lating movement, dissolving into space." 1 

At the Turin sittings lights appeared which also 
"started from the medium's head, but they were pro- 
jected like a minute Roman candle." 2 

Is This Psychic Energy a Form of Radio- Activity? 

What was the nature and cause of these luminous 
appearances, not uncommon at spiritualistic seances, 
but rarely, if ever, before under expert scientific ob- 
servation? In the light of the then recent discoveries 
of the Curies the answer came almost spontaneously: 
Might they not be some form of radio-activity? 

And experiment seemed to confirm the suggestion. 

Flammarion noted a "diaphanous luminosity" issuing 
from the hole, as well as round the fingers, almost form- 
ing "a second misshapen outline." Lombroso, in cor- 
roboration, noted that by merely holding a photo- 
graphic plate, masked by three thicknesses of light- 
proof paper, in the medium's hand, an X-ray-like print 
of her index finger was made on the plate, as if there 
was radio-activity therein. Simultaneously, her hand 



'■Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 383. 
'Ibid., p. 308. 



112 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

shuddered convulsively and she went into the trance 
state. 

Lombroso, in fact, goes even further, and, in a care- 
ful summing up of the Paladino phenomena recently 
published, advances the daring theory that the spiritual 
agents themselves are composed of radio-active mat- 
ter. The 'theory, coming from such a source, is indeed 
epoch-making, and his statement of it deserves to be 
quoted in his own words. 

"This is the first occasion, if I am not mistaken," 
he says, "that we have come into intimate experimental 
contact with these phenomena — I will even say with 
the organism called spirit — with these transitory, im- 
palpable representatives of the life beyond, the existence 
of which is both maintained and disputed, through fear 
or through respect for universal tradition, renewed, as 
it is, by thousands of facts which occur constantly 
under our very eyes. And we find, as I already fore- 
saw some years ago, that these bodies belong to that 
other state of matter, the radiant state, which has now 
a sure foothold in science, and which is the only hy- 
pothesis which can reconcile the ancient, universal be- 
lief in the persistence of some manifestation of life 
after death, with the results of science." 1 

In fact, wonderful as these phenomena seem, their 
trend seems not at all in support of a spiritualistic 
hypothesis. Those that know most are still chary of 
explanation, but the greater part of the explanations 
that have been attempted have been along biological 
lines. 

The idea of an "astral body," of the power of the 



Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, p. 179. 




Colonel Albert De Rochas 

Propounder of the theory of the "astral double" and noted for his work 
in the photography of "etheric" bodies. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 113 

human personality to project to a distance a more or 
less substantial image of itself, is not a new one to the 
student of occultism. Already, too, in the study of hyp- 
notism, De Rochas had taught the possibility of what 
he termed the "fluidic double." He claimed that in 
the trance state the psychic herself, or the hypnotizer if 
the trance be hypnotic, is able to externalize limbs or 
even the complete body of the entranced subject. This 
"astral" externalization is visible to the subject as a 
cloud of smoky vapor; to the others present it is gen- 
erally invisible. 

Yet De Rochas claims to demonstrate the objective 
existence of the astral body. For instance, unnoticed 
by the psychic, he pinches the air where he thinks the 
astral body may be floating, and there is a resulting 
reflex on the corresponding portion of the psychic's 
body. It is interesting to note in this connection that 
Morselli has discovered with Eusapia a marked "ex- 
ternalization of sensibility," has succeeded in making 
her feel pin pricks in the air (her eyes being closed), 
"an inch or two from her skin." 1 

The "fluidic double" of De Rochas, as a whole, or 
in parts, forms itself in obedience to the thought of 
the medium or of those present. It moves with marvel- 
ous precision, regardless of darkness (in fact, light 
seems inimical to its production), and with wonderful 
swiftness. 

We have not yet considered one remarkable feature, 
the synchronism in movement between Eusapia's invisi- 
ble (or visible) "astral" limbs and her natural body. 
This synchronism had been noted several years before. 



Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, p. 345- 



114 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

At the earliest Naples sittings Flammarion noticed 
that almost imperceptible tremors of Eusapia's hand 
coincided with blows struck several feet away, appar- 
ently by an invisible hand. Somewhat later it was 
recorded that the impressions of hands in clay syn- 
chronized with little convulsive pushes of Eusapia's 
hands. 

But in these astounding Bottazzi sittings the corre- 
spondence was too complete to be mere coincidence. 
When the little table before mentioned commenced to 
move about the room it was seen that each little jerk- 
ing movement of the table was accompanied by a con- 
vulsive jerk from Eusapia. Says Bottazzi on this 
point : "Each advance of the table corresponded with 
the most perfect synchronism with the push of Eusa- 
pia's legs against Jona's knees — in other words she 
really executed movements identical with those that 
she would have made had she been pushing the table 
with her visible limbs." 

At another time "a glass was flung from the cabinet 
by these invisible agencies, and this fling coincided 
exactly with a kick which Paladino gave to Jona, as 
if the same will governed both movements." 

At another time "Eusapia said distinctly: 'I have 
touched the smoked cylinder ; look at my fingers.' She 
held out her one hand, then the other toward us. We 
carefully examined her fingers : there was no trace of 
smoke on them. On the cylinder, however, was very 
clearly visible the impression of little finger tips, like 
those of Eusapia." 1 

At another time Professor de Amicis was drawn to- 



x Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 404-5. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 115 

ward the cabinet with some force by an invisible arm. 
As he approached, the curtain bellied out and an in- 
visible face was pressed against his and invisible lips 
kissed his own. "At the same time," says Bottazzi 
significantly, "Eusapia's lips moved as if to kiss, and 
she made the sound of kissing, which we all heard." 

During the fifth sitting occurred the mandolin play- 
ing already mentioned. The instrument lay before them 
in full light several feet from where Eusapia sat; yet 
as the strings moved so moved her finger tips in unison. 
"It would be necessary to have Paladino's fingers in 
the palm of one's hand," says Bottazzi, and it was he 
who had them so on this occasion, "to be convinced 
that the evolutions, twangings of the strings, etc., all 
synchronized with the very delicate movements of her 
fingers, and with the dragging and pushing movements 
of the medium's hand, as if she were directed in the 
execution of these movements by a will which knew 
the effect to be produced. These were not irregular, 
impulsive, disordered movements; they were precise 
and coordinated, whether they were movements of 
one finger or of several fingers, and were identical with 
those which we should make if we wished to seize 
or to vibrate the strings with precision and delicacy." 1 

In short, as Bottazzi himself says, "Whatever may 
be the mediumistic phenomenon produced, there is 
almost always at the same time movement of one or 
several parts of the medium's body." 

Moreover, there seemed to be with these "astral" 
limbs of Eusapia's a continuous and very natural proc- 
ess of education to unaccustomed uses. She spoke as 



^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 380-90. 



116 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

though they were veritable parts of her organism, but 
parts which were often inadequate and fumbling, the 
limbs of a child learning to walk, the fingers of a 
pianist training in dexterity. 

"During the seance Professor Galeotti and I in- 
vited 'John,' in Italian, in French, and in English (these 
are small concessions that it is necessary to make to 
Eusapia's deep-rooted predilections), to make the rod 
of the metronome move, to lower the balance and to 
press the ball of India-rubber ; we afterward explained 
how these objects were made, and what movements 
should be made with the hands in order to move, to 
lower, and to press them. In vain ! She excused her- 
self, saying that she did not find, or that she did not 
see these objects, or that she did not know how to do it. 
Then she complained that the objects were too far 
off, that she could not reach them. . . ." 

"In the following seances, as we shall see," says 
Bottazzi, "Eusapia obeyed these same orders ; the but- 
tons were pressed, the rod of the metronome was set 
swinging, etc., and the fact that we did not obtain 
these results in the first seances shows, in my opinion, 
that Eusapia needed to learn how to make these move- 
ments, with which her invisible hands were unfamiliar, 
just as she would have to learn to make them with 
her visible hands." 1 

Eusapia's Manifestations and the Problem of the Future Life 

So far, therefore, from Eusapia's manifestations 
helping to answer the question, "Are the dead alive ?" 



Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 277-8. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 117 

they seem at first glance but to render the issue mare 
confusing. 

Are discarnate (disembodied) spirits necessary to 
an explanation of Eusapia's poltergeist phenomena and 
materializations? "Not at all," reply Morselli, Bot- 
tazzi, Porro, Foa, Galeotti and most of the eminent in- 
vestigators who have witnessed her exploits. More 
probably, say they, the explanation is purely biological ; 
we have here to do with hitherto unsuspected powers 
of the bodily organism, powers very wonderful and im- 
portant, but not all mystical or in any respect spiritual. 

"One thing is certain," says Bottazzi, for instance, 
"that it is not a being, foreign to the organism of the 
medium, who produces the mediumistic phenomena; 
because she herself is aware of them, and she either 
indicates this by her words or it becomes apparent 
through the relation which the phenomena bear to other 
accompanying incidents." 1 

On the other hand, the most eminent of them all, 
Lombroso himself, like our own Crookes, maintains 
now that some theory of discarnate spirits is the only 
one adequately explaining all the phenomena. In sup- 
port of this view, Lombroso relates the following sig- 
nificant manifestation : 

"One day Eusapia said to M. R. : 'This phantom 
comes for you.' She then fell at once into a profound 
trance. A woman of great beauty appeared, who had 
died two years before; her arm and shoulders were 
covered by the edge of the curtain, in such a way, 
however, as to indicate the form. Her head was cov- 
ered with a very fine veil ; she breathed a warm breath 



1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 397. 



118 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

against the back of M. R.'s hand, carried his hand up 
to her hair, and very gently bit his fingers. Meanwhile, 
Eusapia was heard uttering prolonged groans, showing 
painful effort, which ceased when the phantom disap- 
peared. The apparition was perceived by two others 
present, and returned several times. An attempt was 
then made to photograph it. Eusapia and John con- 
sented, but the phantom, by a sign with the head and 
hands, indicated to us that she objected, and twice 
broke the photographic plate. 

"The request was then made that a mold of her 
hands might be obtained, and although Eusapia and 
John both promised to make her comply with our de- 
sire, they did not succeed. In the last seance, Eusapia 
gave a more formal promise; the three usual raps in 
the table endorsed the consent, and we indeed heard a 
hand plunged in the liquid in the cabinet. After some 
seconds, R. had in his hands a block of paraffin, with 
a complete mold, but an etheric hand advanced from 
the curtain and dashed it to pieces. 

"This concerned — as we afterward learned — a wom- 
an who had a strong reason for leaving no proof of 
her identity. It is evident, therefore . . . that a 
third will can intervene in spiritistic phenomena, which 
is neither that of 'John,' nor of Eusapia, nor of those 
present at the seance, but is opposed to all of them." 1 

A little later he adds : "It is true that the majority 
of the motor phenomena, and the most intelligent phe- 
nomena, start from the neighborhood of the medium, 
especially on the left side, which (she being left- 
handed) is the strongest in the trance. It is true that 



l Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, pp. 175-6. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 119 

these efforts are preceded by synchronous movements 
on the part of the medium; it is true that sometimes 
an ethereal body which serves as an arm, and which 
moves the objects, has been seen to issue from her 
skirt or from her back ; in full light; but it does not 
follow because the medium is a great factor, even the 
greatest factor, in these efforts that they are exclusively 
her own doing." 1 

But even admitting "discarnate spirits" as an, or 
even the, explanation, does not assume necessarily, we 
must remember, that these discarnate spirits are the 
spirits of the dead. That would still remain to be 
proved — the "problem of identity," the final problem. 



^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, p. 177. 



"SPIRITUALISTIC PHENOMENA ARE AUTHENTIC" 

It would require a volume to demonstrate that the dead have 
a fragmentary existence which completes itself in the presence 
of the medium. 

I am just finishing a work which contains many experi- 
ments and graphic demonstrations, together with my psycho- 
logical and chemical studies. This book will be published in 
English. 

But to sum up in a few words, I have attended at least a 
hundred spiritualistic seances at Genoa, at Turin, at Naples 
and at Venice. 

I am perfectly convinced of the authenticity of the phe- 
nomena produced by the medium Eusapia Paladino. Never- 
theless, when she finds herself in a condition not favorable 
to the production of these phenomena, such as raising a table 
off the floor and moving objects about the room, she does not 
hesitate to resort to tricks. This is partly due to a great 
desire to please those who expect something from her. 

Also, I am convinced that before many years this celebrated 
medium will be incapable of producing them at all. Her 
power is diminishing day by day. The spiritualistic force 
with which she is gifted is becoming extinct. I do not make 
this statement by guess, but by actual observation of her. 

Already, at the present time, she materializes but rarely, 
whereas a few years ago she did this with comparative ease. 
At the actual moment, also, her materializations have become 
vague in outline, fragmentary, a sort of phosphorescence diffi- 
cult to distinguish. 

As to the explanation of her manifestations, Eusapia Pala- 
dino is a confirmed hysteric, owing, probably, to an accident — 
to a blow which she received on the head, in the right temple, 
when she was a child of three years. The scar remains, a 
deep hole in the temple. During her trances there exhales 
from this hole in the temple a gaseous vapor. 

As to whether science can rend asunder the mystery which 
120 




Dr. Cesar Lombroso 



Alienist Professor of Psychiatry, 
the science of criminology, and one 
Eusapia Paladino. 



University of Turin, founder of 
of the foremost investigators of 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 121 

surrounds the production of these phenomena, I will say of 
certain of them, yes; of others, no, not yet. Science has not 
made the necessary advance to affirm positively whether they 
are a reality, or whether they may be due to trick or possibly 
to the hallucination of those who witness them. 

But as to the moving of objects at a distance without con- 
tact, such as raising a table from the floor or the moving of 
objects about the room — such as a chair, for instance — in my 
opinion there is no longer any room for doubt as to their 
authenticity. There are a number of instantaneous photo- 
graphs in existence, for the matter of that, which speak for 
themselves. 

These were taken after every precaution had been taken 
by the scientific men present to prevent fraud. The medium, 
Eusapia Paladino, had both her legs and her hands tied, while, 
for further safety, an investigator sat on each side of her 
holding her hands and with a foot pressed down firmly on 
each of her feet. And yet the photograph taken at the instant 
shows the table almost twelve inches off the floor! 

But I have seen other things more wonderful than this; I 
was present one day when a pot of flowers weighing six 
pounds, which was sitting on the table around which were 
grouped the scientific men, suddenly lifted itself in the air, 
making a circle over our heads, and then settled down near 
the spot from which it had risen. 

On another occasion, at Venice, I assisted at a most strange 
occurrence. 

By the aid of the medium we invoked the spirit of a defunct 

countess, Countess M . The spirit was very long in making 

her appearance, and when she did she quickly disappeared, 
leaving a message written on the table in Latin. It read: 
"There is a dirty pig among you." We were stupefied. And 
again we begged the spirit to return and explain. When she 
did, she wrote: "I will not come again until he leaves the 
room." 

Naturally, we all remained, as no one was willing to pose 
as the pig. 

Finally she came and indicated the one meant. He was a 
well-known literary man, known and respected by us all. For 



122 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

a moment he was nonplussed. Then a light broke over his 
face. In his wanderings he had picked up a book for its rare 
binding. It was an old but very obscene brochure. He had 
it in his pocket. 



As to the levitations of the table, it has been proved that 
the weight of Paladino increases during the time the table 
is in the air exactly the weight of the table, although there 
are a hundred witnesses ready to take oath that she does 
not touch it. And I am willing to make a deposition that the 
table rises in the air, as well as to the moving of objects at 
a distance, without contact, and that this is done honestly, 
without any trick whatsoever. 

— Cesar Lombroso. 



CHAPTER VI 
OBSESSION AND DUAL PERSONALITY 

It is a rather interesting fact that three very emi- 
nent scientists, speaking, so far as I know, independ- 
ently, have used the same figure of speech to denote 
those extensions of human consciousness which we are 
about to study. 

The scientist knows that all our forces — heat, light, 
electricity — are merely vibrations of the ether at widely 
differing velocities. If the atmosphere vibrates a hun- 
dred or a thousand times a second, and the vibration 
strikes the drum of our ear, we call the effect "sound." 
If the ether vibrates a certain number of million times 
a second the vibrations will cause a steel needle to 
swing — we call that effect "electricity." When vibra- 
tions, a million times faster yet, strike the retina of 
our eye, we say that they are "light." Sound, elec- 
tricity, heat, light — they are all but vibrations of the 
ether, growing inconceivably faster and faster as we go 
up the ascending scale. 

Ten years ago scientists thought they had reached 
the end of the scale: now they see no end. Millions 
of times a. second faster than light are vibrations that 
we call the X-ray ; even faster are the "N-rays ;" and 
faster and faster yet the radiations from radium, and 
other wonderful forces that men are finding in exist- 
ence as they reach out into the Unknown. 
123 



124 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

But even as the whole great scale fades away at 
the end into something still beyond our grasp, so each 
part of it, distinct by itself, is not continuous with the 
other parts. 

Between the vibrations that we call "electricity," and 
the vibrations that we call "heat," we imagine there 
must be other vibrations filling up the gap : but we do 
not know, simply because we have no senses that can 
comprehend them. The spectrum is just such a little 
scale. Below the darkest red at the lower end we can- 
not see: at the other end, as the vibrations get faster 
and faster thru the orange, the blue and the violet, is 
another unknown gup. That is, we cannot see it: but 
surely the vibrations are there. Some of them, for in- 
stance, that we have never seen, and never can see, 
mark their presence on- a photographic plate. "The 
limits of our spectrum," as Myers says, "do not inhere 
in the sun that shines, but in the eye that marks his 
shining. Beyond each end of that prismatic ribbon are 
ether-waves of which our retina takes no cognizance. 
Beyond the red end come waves whose- potency we 
still recognize, but as heat and not as light. Beyond 
the violet end are waves still more mysterious; whose 
very existence man, for ages, never suspected, and 
whose intimate potencies are still but obscurely 
known." 1 

That is the figure of speech to which I at first re- 
ferred. Just as there are limits at either end of the 
scale of vibrations beyond which our own senses can 
tell us nothing, so may there be psychic forces at work 
beyond the limits of our consciousness. These are 



'Myers : Human Personality, p. 18. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 125 

seemingly supernatural to us, when by some chance we 
witness their effect, but really are no more supernatural 
than the X-ray that pierces the solid body, or the in- 
visible ultra-violet ray that marks the photographic 
plate. 

Dr. Osier, one of the three scientists to whom I re- 
ferred, in one of his Ingersoll lectures on immortality, 
said : "There is much to suggest, and it is a pleasing 
fancy, that outside our consciousness lie fields of psy- 
chical activity analogous to the invisible yet powerful 
rays of the spectrum. The thousand activities of the 
bodily machine, some of them noisy enough at times, 
do not in health obtrude themselves upon our con- 
sciousness, and just as there is this enormous subcon- 
scious field of vegetable life, so there may be a vast su- 
praconscious sphere of astral life, the manifestations 
of which are only now and then in evidence." 1 

Myers utters almost the same thought. Just as there 
are unknown and unsensed forces at work beyond the 
limits of the spectrum, "even thus," he says, "I venture 
to affirm, beyond each end of our conscious spectrum 
extends a range of faculty and perception, exceeding 
the known range, but as yet indistinctly guessed. The 
artifices of the modern physicist have extended far in 
each direction the visible spectrum known to Newton. 
It is for the modern psychologist to discover artifices 
which may extend in each direction the conscious spec- 
trum as known to Plato or to Kent. The phenomena 
cited in this work carry us, one may say, as far onward 
as fluorescence carries us beyond the violet end. The 
'X-rays' of the psychical spectrum remain for a later 



a Quoted in Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 340. 



126 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

age to discover. Yet something of clearness will be 
gained by even this rudimentary mental picture — rep- 
resenting conscious human faculty as a linear spectrum 
whose red rays begin jwhere voluntary muscular con- 
trol and organic sensation begin\ and whose violet rays 
fade away at the point at which man's highest strain 
of thought or imagination merges into reverie or ec- 
stasy." 1 ) 

The third is Sir W. Crookes, who uses almost the 
same figure, which Dr. Funk, in his introduction to 
The Widow's Mite, thus comments upon: 

"If I understand correctly Mr. Crookes' table of vi- 
brations, the differences between sound, electricity, 
light, X-rays and radium are only the differences in 
the frequency of vibrations or waves — those of sound 
in the coarse atmosphere, and those of the others in 
ether, possibly something higher ; that is, if an ear were 
sufficiently sensitive, it could hear color, hear the 
beauty of a picture. Radium is vibration up to the 
sixtieth degree or step. . . . 

"The human body is coarse, made up of slow, slug- 
gish vibrations, but were these vibrations as rapid as 
those of the X-rays, our bodies would be invisible and 
pass thru many solids ; and were they as rapid as ra- 
dium, they would pass thru all solids, as Christ's res- 
urrected body passed thru the walls of the chamber at 
Jerusalem. Scientists will soon make the miracles of 
Christ elementary. Already they are changing their 
attitude toward what has been regarded as supernat- 
ural." 



'Myers: Human Personality, pp. 18-19. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 127 

Do not misunderstand these statements. They are 
not explanations of psychic phenomena; I do not say 
that "ghosts" have anything to do with the spectrum : 
these are simply figures of speech, analogies to make 
clear one very important fact, that apparitions, clair- 
voyance and all the other very wonderful phenomena 
that I mentioned in the first paper, are not necessarily 
.?«/> ^natural. Simply because they are not a part of 
our every-day consciousness does not mean that they 
do not exist, any more than X-rays do not exist be- 
cause we can't see them : they are supernatural no more 
than the X-ray is supernatural. 

Clairvoyance, telepathy may be new powers of the 
human organism — that is, new to our past experience 
— but just as much a part of our universe as light or 
sound: they are governed likewise by natural laws, 
perhaps by the very same laws. Let us see. 

The Hypothesis of the "Subliminal Self" 

No name stands higher in the realm of knowledge 
which we are discussing than that of Frederic W. H. 
Myers, already several times mentioned. From the 
very foundation of the Society for Psychical Research 
none worked more enthusiastically; none reasoned 
more keenly; none gave of time and effort more gen- 
erously. Naturally idealistic in temperament, it was 
natural that his sympathies should be early aroused: 
it was also natural that he should press on, more di- 
rectly perhaps than the facts warranted, to the goal 
which he very soon set up — the scientific proof of an 
existence after death. 

Yet not so fast as entirely to vitiate his work. His 



I 



128 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

enthusiasm was tempered with patience, and he com- 
bined in the formation of his own theories an admirably 
catholic judgment and a keen sense of proportion and 
ability of analysis. As a result, his master work,, Hu- 
man Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, a 
two-volume summing up of his life-long study of the 
psychic problem, must be conceded, with all its faults, 
an epoch-making contribution to the literature of psy- 
chology. This work, published shortly after his death 
— for he was cut off in middle life "at the zenith" of his 
power — gave to the world the first complete working 
out of his hypothesis of the subliminal self; and its ap- 
plication to the problems under consideration. And, 
"daring in its conception, it was applied by him with 
even greater boldness. It was not enough to utilize 
it as an excellent working hypothesis to explain . . . 
phenomena which . . . the Society for Psychical 
Research had made it impossible for science longer to 
ignore. If, on the one hand, it could be plausibly main- 
tained by him that, for example, men of genius owe 
their fame to a capacity for utilizing powers which lie 
too deep below the threshold of consciousness for the 
ordinary man's control ; that the appeal of the hypnotist 
is to the subliminal . . . self, and that it is the sub- 
liminal self that sends and receives telepathic mes- 
sages, he could, on the other hand, see every reason 
for affirming that the indwelling principle, unifying the 
subliminal and supraliminal, persists after the death and 
decay of the bodily organism." 1 

And what was this hypothesis of "the subliminal 
self"? 



'Bruce : Riddle of Personality, pp. 45-6. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 129 

The definition of "self" current in psychology is 
probably familiar. Myers himself quotes Reid for a 
clear summing up of the conservative idea of person- 
ality, the answer that the average man would give 
to the question, What is it that "I" is? What do I 
mean when I say "myself"? 

"My personal identity, . . . implies the continued 
existence of that indivisible thing which I call 'myself.' 
Whatever this 'self may be, it is something which 
thinks and deliberates and resolves and acts and suf- 
fers. I am not thought, I am not action, I am not feel- 
ing; I am something that thinks and acts and suffers. 
My thoughts and actions and feelings change every 
moment ; they have no continued, but a successive, ex- 
istence; but that self, or I, to which they belong, is 
permanent. . . . The identity of a person is a perfect 
identity; ... it is impossible that a person should be 
in part the same and in part different, because a per- 
son ... is not divisible into parts." 1 

This is clear and exact, as simple as any definition 
of anything as intangible as "self" could be. It had 
done duty as the accepted idea of the nature of per- 
sonality for a century; in fact, since the birth of the 
science of psychology. 

The trouble was, it was altogether too simple to de- 
fine a thing which scientists were discovering was very 
complex indeed. The old definition did not cover the 
facts : the old idea of "self" had to be broadened very 
materially. Mr. Bruce summarizes very clearly some 
of the difficulties in which psychologists found them- 
selves. 



'Reid : Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, p. 318. 



130 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

"If this unity and continuity on which Reid lays 
such stress be the essential elements of the 'self,' what 
becomes of it in the disintegrations affecting it during 
bodily life? Where locate it in insanity, in hysteria, 
in somnambulism, spontaneous or induced, in the trance 
states of mediums apparently surrendering their organ- 
ism to the control of some extraneous self ? Still more 
perplexing becomes the problem, on the basis of the 
'common-sense' view of personality, when there is in- 
volved complete, or seemingly complete, disintegrations 
[cases of "dual personality"], such as those revealed in 
the experience of Mary Reynolds and Ansel Bourne." 1 

Some new conception of "self" became imperative. 
Myers attacked the problem enthusiastically, yet seri- 
ously, and his new hypothesis was the result of many 
years' study and elaboration. If its completed form did 
not appear till 1903, it was tentatively submitted to 
the attention of the scientific world as far back as 1887. 
In an article on The Drift of Psychical Research 2 he 
had written : "Considerable evidence has already been 
laid before the world to show that: 1. There exists 
in each of us a subliminal self ; that is to say, a certain 
part of our being, conscious and intelligent, does not 
enter into our ordinary waking intelligence, nor rise 
above our habitual level of consciousness, into the 
supraliminal life. 2. This subliminal life exerts facul- 
ties above the normal — faculties, that is to say, which 
apparently transcend our known level of evolution. 
Some of these, as hyperesthesia, or keener sensibility, 
and hypermesia, or fuller memory, seem to be exten- 



1 Bruce: Riddle of Personality, p. 34. 
J In the National Review, v. 24. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 131 

sions of faculties already known. Others, however, 
altogether exceed our [ordinary] range of powers : as 
telepathy . . . clairvoyance . . . retrocognition ... or 
precognition. ... 3. This subliminal knowledge or 
faculty . . . may be communicated to our conscious- 
ness ... by means of sensory or motor automatism." 

In the first chapter of his masterwork he outlines 
his theory of the "subliminal self" in more elaborate 
form: 

"The idea of a threshold {limen, . . .) of conscious- 
ness — of a level above which sensation or thought must 
rise before it can enter into our conscious life — is a 
simple and familiar one. The word subliminal — mean- 
ing 'beneath the threshold' — has already been used to 
define those sensations which are too feeble to be indi- 
vidually recognized. I propose to extend the meaning 
of the term, so as to make it cover all that takes place 
beneath the ordinary threshold, ... of consciousness 
— not only those faint stimulations whose very faint- 
ness keeps them submerged, but . . . sensations, 
thoughts, emotions, which may be strong, definite and 
independent, but which . . . seldom merge into that 
supraliminal current of consciousness which we habitu- 
ally identify with ourselves. 

"Perceiving . . . that these submerged thoughts and 
emotions possess the characteristics which we associate 
with conscious life, I feel bound to speak of a sub- 
liminal, . . . consciousness — a consciousness which we 
shall see, for instance, uttering or writing sentences 
quite as complex and coherent as the supraliminal con- 
sciousness could make them. Perceiving further that 
this conscious life beneath the threshold . . . seems to 
be no . . . intermittent thing ; . . . but that there also 



132 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

is a continuous subliminal chain [or chains] of mem- 
ory . . . involving just that kind of individual and per- 
sistent revival of old impressions and response to new 
ones, which we commonly call a Self — I find it per- 
missible and convenient to speak ... of a subliminal 
Self. 

"I do not, indeed, by using this term, assume that 
there are two . . . parallel selves existing always with- 
in each of us. Rather I mean by the subliminal Self 
that part of the Self which is commonly subliminal; 1 
... I conceive that there may be — not only co-opera- 
tions [between these two parts of the Self] . . . — but 
also upheavals and alternations of personality of many 
kinds, so that what was once below the surface may, 
for a time, or permanently, rise above it. And I con- 
ceive, also, that no Self of which we can here have cog- 
nizance is, in reality, more than a fragment of a larger 
Self . . ." 2 

The above should be read carefully, as it is one of 
the most important keys to the scientific explanation 
to the whole range of psychic phenomena. To put 
the hypothesis even more simply, Myers believes that 
we possess, not one simple "self," but a complex "self," 
composed, as it were, of many parts. One of these 
parts, he says, comes up into the consciousness of 
every-day life ; that part is the "self" we know, the one 
that hears, sees, talks, thinks, loves. The other parts 
of our "self" are usually "below the threshold" of con- 
sciousness, are "sub-liminal." Ordinarily, we do not 



^hese italics, and the paragraphing of the quotation, are 
mine. 
'Myers: Human Personality, Vol. I., pp. 14-15. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 133 

know they are there: but they, he says, are the parts 
that are at work in our dreams ; they are the ones that 
are acted upon by the hypnotist. It is these subliminal 
parts of our "self," he goes on, that give us premoni- 
tions, that are capable of practising clairvoyance and 
telepathy, and, finally, may be that part of the "self" 
that persists after the change we call "death." 

A very important hypothesis this, as you can see. 
Clearly understood at the outset, it will make very clear 
and possible a great deal of the most wonderful phe- 
nomena of which we are going to speak. 

Bear in mind, then, as we go on, this new idea of 
"self." It is something like an iceberg: a small part 
of it out in the sunlight of consciousness, feeling the 
breezes — meaning by them the various forces that re- 
cord themselves on our five senses. But a large part 
of it below the surface of the water, sub-liminal, out 
of sight and knowledge of this daylight of conscious- 
ness. 

But at times a little light does filter down thru the 
lower mass, and we say we have dreams ; and once in 
a while the submerged part strikes an obstruction un- 
seen by the conscious self, and a tremble shudders up 
thru the whole, and we say we have a "premonition" ; 
and once in a while some warm current (of disease, 
perhaps) will eat away part of the iceberg, and it will 
"turn turtle," and the "self" we knew every day will 
go down out of sight, and another "self" (but, after 
all, only another part of the same "self," of the same 
iceberg) will flash up out of the unknown into the day- 
light of consciousness; and to the outer world it will 
seem that a new person has taken possession of the 
former person's body. 



134 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

This phenomena of "dual personality" is not so rare 
as one might suppose. By Myers' hypothesis, just out- 
lined, we all have other personalities latent within us ; 
we are all, as it were, possible cases of Dr. Jekyl and 
Mr. Hyde, if only the chance comes right to bring out 
one of our "other selves." 

Yet, for all that, the cases which have been noted 
are profoundly interesting; several have been studied 
with great care, but space forbid us to more than 
mention them here. 

Cases of Dual Personality 

There was Mary Reynolds, a Pennsylvania girl, who 
woke one day from a deep sleep as one new born. Her 
relatives and friends were strangers to her ; everything 
she had ever known, even how to talk, had vanished, 
and had to be learned anew. Even her manner and 
disposition had changed. After a few weeks she woke, 
this time her original self, with no memory of the 
period when she had been Mary Reynolds No. 2. So 
she alternated between her two personalities — or rather 
the two parts of her own personality, so distinct as to 
seem two separate people — for several years. Finally, 
however, Mary Reynolds No. 2 got the better of Mary 
Reynolds No. 1, and remained as the Mary Reynolds 
till her — or shall we say "their"? — death. 

Then there was Mme. B., carefully studied by Pro- 
fessor Janet, among others, who had three distinct per- 
sonalities, called, respectively, by him, Leonie, Leontine 
and Leonore. Unlike Mary Reynolds, these "selves" 
seldom alternated spontaneously, but generally ap- 
peared at various stages of hypnosis. Leonie knew 
nothing of the existence of the other two Madame B. s ; 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 135 

Leontine knew what Leonie did and thought and said, 
but nothing about Leonore; while Leonore knew all 
about what happened when both Leonie and Leontine 
had command. 

Another French case, Felida X., shows even more 
concretely the absolute change of personality which a 
case of this kind exhibits. Felida X., when she had 
lapsed back into her first self, "knew nothing of the 
dog that played at her feet, or of the acquaintance of 
yesterday. She knew nothing of her household ar- 
rangements, her business undertakings, her social du- 
ties." Making a virtue of necessity, Felida accustomed 
herself, whenever she felt the premonitory symptoms 
of an attack, to write letters to her other self, giving 
full directions as to the conduct of her domestic and 
social affairs, and in this way she was enabled to bridge 
the gap in memory to some extent. 

The case of Miss Beauchamp, who had four distinct 
personalities, is, perhaps, most interesting of all, but 
too long and complex to quote here. The third one, 
who called herself "Sally," had an impish disposition, 
which caused Miss Beauchamp (meaning by that Miss 
Beauchamp's body's first inhabitant) no end of trou- 
ble. Miss Beauchamp, who was in straitened circum- 
stances financially, was by nature cautious and thrifty. 
"Sally" frittered away her carefully hoarded earnings. 
Miss Beauchamp was deeply religious and guarded in 
her actions. "Sally" was irreligious, coquettish, and 
addicted to smoking cigarets. Miss Beauchamp wear- 
ied easily. "Sally" never felt tired, and would fre- 
quently take her other self, all unconsciously, on long 
walks, allowing Miss Beauchamp to awake from the 
trance state in some distant suburb, penniless and worn 



136 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

out. For a time Dr. Prince (who had the case under 
observation) "gave her some relief by hypnotizing 
'Sally' into quiescence, but before long 'Sally' be- 
came unmanageable even with the aid of hypnotism. 
She had her good qualities, however. Once, .according 
to Dr. Prince, when Miss Beauchamp despairingly 
gave up the struggle and essayed suicide by gas, 'Sal- 
ly' assumed control, turned off the gas, and opened 
the window." 1 

The situation was saved by the appearance on the 
scene of Personality No. 4, who routed 'Sally' and 
Nos. 1 and 2; and has remained since then the only 
"Miss Beauchamp." 

The Remarkable Case of Ansel Bourne 

The case of Ansel Bourne is such a clear example 
of dual personality that I venture to describe it at great- 
er length. 

Mr. Bourne had been more or less subject to semi- 
epileptic seizures, partly resulting from a sunstroke 
suffered when a young man. The latter event was also 
indirectly the cause of a deep religious awakening, 
which resulted in his becoming an itinerant preacher. 
One morning in 1861, being at that time 61 years old, 
and residing in the village of Greene, R. I., he myste- 
riously disappeared. 

Some two weeks later a stranger, named A. J. 
Brown, appeared in Norristown, Pa., and renting a 
store of a Mr. Earle, set up a little shop for the sale 
of confectionery and notions. Mr, Brown, appearing 



"Bruce : Riddle of Personality, pp. 86-9. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 137 

respectable and steady-going, was admitted into the 
Earle family, and lived with them for six weeks. Dur- 
ing this period he took an active part in the work of 
the local church, ran his store methodically and suc- 
cessfully, and gained the acquaintance and respect of 
his new neighbors. 

Suddenly, early one morning, he aroused the Earles 
with inquiries as to where he was ; denied that he 
owned a shop ; that he had ever seen the Earles, or that 
his name was Brown. He declared his name was Ansel 
Bourne, and became so excited that he was thought 
to be insane, and put under surveillance. He prevailed 
on the local physician, however, to telegraph his 
nephew, Andrew Harris, in Providence ; and three days 
later this gentleman appeared, wound up "Mr. 
Brown's" store and accounts, and took his thoroly be- 
wildered uncle back home. 

But how did he happen to be in Norristown, Pa.? 
He could not tell himself, for he remembered not a 
scrap of the events of the last two months. Luckily, 
Dr. Hodgson heard of the case, became acquainted 
with Mr. Bourne, and succeeded in hypnotizing him. 
Lo, as Dr. Hodgson half anticipated, in the hypnotic 
state Mr. Bourne again became "Mr. Brown," with a 
memory of all that he had done during that two months 
previously blank. This he related in detail to Dr. 
Hodgson ; and the facts given were such that the whole 
account was afterward independently verified. "He 
said" [while in the hypnotic state], says Dr. Hodgson, 
in his report on the case, "that his name was Albert 
John Brown; that on January 17, 1887, he went from 
Providence to Pawtucket in a horsecar, thence by train 
to Boston, and thence to New York, where he arrived 



138 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

at 9 p.m., and went to the Grand Union Hotel, regis- 
tering as A. J. Brown. He left New York on the 
following morning and went to Newark, N. J. ; thence 
to Philadelphia, where he arrived in the evening, and 
stayed for three or four days in a hotel near the 
depot. ... He thought of taking a store in a small 
town, and after looking around at several places, among 
them Germantown, chose Norristown, . . . 

"He stated that he was born in Newton, N. H., 
July 8, 1826 (he was born in New York City, 
July 8, 1826), had passed thru a great deal of trouble, 
losses of friends and property; loss of his wife was 
one trouble — she died in 188 1 ; three children living — 
but everything was confused prior to his finding him- 
self in the horsecar on the way to Pawtucket; he want- 
ed to get away somewhere — he didn't know where — 
and have rest. He had six or seven hundred dollars 
with him when he went into the store. He lived very 
closely, boarded by himself, and did his own cooking. 
He went to church, and also to one prayer-meeting. 
At one of these meetings he spoke about a boy who 
had kneeled down and prayed in the midst of the pas- 
sengers on a steamboat from Albany to New York 
[an incident of which he was well aware in the Ansel 
Bourne personality]. 

"He had heard of the singular experience of Ansel 
Bourne, but did not know whether he had ever met 
Ansel Bourne or not. ... He used to keep a store 
in Newton, N. H., and was engaged in lumber and 
trading business [Ansel Bourne had at one time been 
a carpenter] ; had never previously dealt in the business 
which he took up at Norristown. He kept the Norris- 
town store for six or eight weeks; how he got away 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 139 

from there was all confused; since then it had been 
a blank. The last thing he remembered about the store 
was going to bed on Sunday night, March 13, 1887. 
... He did not feel 'anything out of the way.' Went 
to bed at eight or nine o'clock, and remembered lying 
in bed, but nothing further." 1 

But what, you ask, have these phenomena of dual 
personality, interesting though they are of themselves, 
to do with our main problem of the future life? The 
relation of the two will be clear enough if we carry 
this alternation of personality a single step further. 

So far — unless we except the irrepressible "Sally," 
who claimed that she was an entirely distinct person- 
ality — we have witnessed, according to Myers' hypothe- 
sis, various parts of a person's self successively in con- 
trol of his body. Now we come to a group of cases, 
where the original personality has been displaced by 
what claims to be an outside personality altogether ; in 
other words, the body is "possessed" by another 
"spirit," and this spirit claims to be discamate; that is, 
belonging to a person that is dead. 

The Famous Case of the "Watseka Wonder" 

A complete discussion of this phenomena of "con- 
trol" by an exterior personality (motor automatism 
is the name given it by Myers) may better be reserved 
a little till we take up the question of mediumship. I 
shall, however, give the history of one very striking 
case here, to show the intimate relation between it and 
dual personality. 



'S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. VII., pp. 221-58. 



140 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

The case of Rancy Vennum, the "Watseka Wonder," 
so called, is attested to — so far as the facts can be at- 
tested — very strongly, the evidence having been exam- 
ined with "great pains" by Col. J. C. Bundy, who is en- 
dorsed by Myers as "a skilful and scrupulously honest 
investigator," by his associate, Dr. Stevens, by Dr. 
Hodgson, and by Myers himself. For the story of 
"the Wonder" I can do no better than quote the ex- 
cellent condensation given by Dr. Funk. 1 

"Rancy Vennum was a girl about fourteen years of 
age, living, in 1878, at Watseka, Ind. In the same 
town had died, in 1865, thirteen years before, a girl by 
the name of Mary Roff. Mary died about a year after 
Rancy 's birth. Of course, the girls never knew each 
other. Rancy's parents were not Spiritualists, and, 
up to this time, Rancy had always been in good health. 
Her trouble began with trances, in which she said she 
visited heaven and angels. She heard voices at night 
calling her. 

"Her experiences at this time seemed to be those 
of an insane person. She became sullen and disagree- 
able, and her friends thought of sending her to an 
asylum. One day Rancy said that a spirit by the name 
of Mary Roff wanted to come to her, and the next 
day Mr. Vennum called at the office of Mr. Roff and 
informed him that his daughter claimed to be Mary 
Roff, and wanted to go home. He said: 'She seems 
like a child real homesick, wanting to see her pa and 
ma and her brothers.' 



x Funk: The Widow's Mite, pp. 408-12. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 141 

"After the supposed control of Mary Roff, Rancy 
became 'mild, docile, polite, and timid, knowing none 
of the family, but constantly pleading to go home,' 
and 'only found contentment in going back to heaven, 
as she said, for short visits.' 

"About a week after Mary took control of Rancy's 
body, Mrs. A. B. Roff and her daughter, Mrs. Min- 
erva Alter, Mary's sister, hearing of the remarkable 
change, went to see the girl. As they came in sight, 
far down the street, Mary Rancy, looking out of the 
window, exclaimed exultingly, 'There come my ma and 
sister Nervie !' — the name by which Mary used to call 
Mrs. Alter in girlhood. As they came into the house 
she caught them around their necks, wept and cried 
for joy, and seemed more homesick than before. At 
times she seemed almost frantic to go home [to the 
Roff home]. 

"On the nth day of February, 1878, they sent the 
girl to Mr. Roff's, where she met her 'pa and ma' and 
each member of the family, with the most gratifying 
expressions of love and affection, by words and em- 
braces. On being asked how long she would stay, 
she said, 'The angels will let me stay till some time 
in May'; and she made it her home there till May 21, 
three months and ten days, a happy, contented daugh- 
ter and sister in a borrowed body. 

"The girl, now in her new home, seemed perfectly 
happy and content, knowing every person and every- 
thing that Mary knew when in her original body, twelve 
to twenty-five years ago, recognizing and calling by 
name those who were friends and neighbors of the 
family from 1852 to 1865, when Mary died, calling 
attention to scores, yes, hundreds, of incidents that 



142 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

transpired during her natural life. During all the 
period of her sojourn at Mr. Roff's she had no knowl- 
edge of, and did not recognize any of, Mr. Vennum's 
family, their friends or neighbors, yet Mr. and Mrs. 
Vennum and their children visited her and Mr. Roff's 
people, she being introduced to them as to any stran- 
gers. After frequent visits, and hearing them often 
and favorably spoken of, she learned to love them as 
acquaintances, and visited them with Mrs. Roff three 
times. 

"One day she met an old friend and neighbor of Mr. 
Roff's, who was a widow when Mary was a girl at 
home. Some years since the lady married a Mr. Wag- 
oner, with whom she yet lives. But when she met Mrs. 
Wagoner she clasped her around the neck and said: 
'O Mary Lord, you look so very natural, and have 
changed the least of any one I have seen since I came 
back.' Mrs. Lord was in some way related to the 
Vennum family, and lived close by them, but Mary 
could call her only by the name by which she knew her 
fifteen years ago, and could not seem to realize that 
she was married. Mrs. Lord lived just across the 
street from Mr. Roff's for several years, prior and up 
to within a few months of Mary's death; both being 
members of the same Methodist church, they were very 
intimate. . . . 

"One evening, in the latter part of March, Mr. Roff 
was sitting in the room waiting for tea, and reading 
the paper, Mary being out in the yard. He asked Mrs. 
Roff if she could find a certain velvet headdress that 
Mary used to wear the last year before she died. If 
so, to lay it on the stand and say nothing about it, to 
see if Mary would recognize it. Mrs. Roff readily 




/ ,m 



The "Watseka Wonder," the Most Famous Recorded 
Case of Obsession 

The Roff home in 1877, where most of the recorded events occurred. 

III. Mary Roff, whose spirit ap- 
parently returned to inhabit the 
body of Lurancy Vennum. 

IV. The Vennum house in Watseka, Illinois. 



II. 'Rancy Vennum, who. as 
girl of fourteen, developed i 
markable mediumistic powers. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 143 

found and laid it on the stand. The girl soon came 
in, and immediately exclaimed as she approached the 
stand, 'Oh ! there is my headdress I wore when my hair 
was short !' She then asked, 'Ma, where is my box of 
letters ? Have you got them yet ?' Mrs. Roff replied, 
'Yes, Mary, I have some of them.' She at once got 
the box, with many letters in it. As Mary began to 
examine them she said: 'Oh, ma, here is a collar I 
tatted! Ma, why did you not show to me my letters 
and things before?' The collar had been preserved 
among the relics of the lamented child as one of the 
beautiful things her fingers had wrought before Lu- 
rancy was born; and so Mary continually recognized 
every little thing and remembered every little incident 
of her girlhood. . . . 

"Scores of tests were made like those just mentioned, 
which seemed to establish, as nearly as anything could 
establish, the identity of this spirit control. After three 
months and ten days' sojourn in Rancy's body, Mary 
told her supposed parents that Rancy was coming back, 
and that she must return to the angels. When Rancy 
returned she had to be introduced anew to all of the 
new acquaintances that Mary had made, even to Mary's 
doctor and to the members of the Roff family. Her 
health was restored. She grew to womanhood, and 
afterward married. . . . 

"In this strange Watseka case it will be observed 
that the person that claimed to be Mary Roff never 
appeared to any one at Watseka except thru the 
body of Rancy. She never materialized in an inde- 
pendent body; at any rate, no one reported to have 
seen such a materialization. If this was a spirit, as 
Mr. Hodgson thinks, then it was a case'of obsession." 



144 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Here we have a straightforward and seemingly con- 
vincing narrative. Unfortunately for unbiased cre- 
dence, further embellishments are given, especially by 
enthusiastic spiritualist writers, which weaken rather 
than strengthen the report. 

Tho the most important, the alleged "Mary Roff" 
possession was not the only one. At an earlier date 
she claimed to be "Katrina Hogan," sixty-three years 
old, and recently arrived from Germany "thru the air." 
At this time "the girl sat near the stove, in a common 
chair, her elbows on her knees, her hands under her 
chin, feet curled up on the chair, eyes staring, looking 
in every way like an 'old hag.' . . . She appeared sullen 
and crabbed, calling her father 'Old Black Dick,' and 
her mother 'Old Granny.' " At another time she 
claimed to be a young man, "Willie Canning," son of 
"Peter Canning," who had "ran away from home, got 
into difficulty, changed his name several times, and 
finally lost his life." 1 

These appear suspiciously like the amazingly coher- 
ent and detailed cases of dual personality of which we 
have already noted examples. As showing, however, 
the attitude of the spiritualist, we are told, for example, 
that at the birth of her first child (about four years 
after she married George Binning, a respectable farmer 
living near Watseka) "she was entranced, her eyes 
turned heavenward, beautiful smiles played over her 
features as the work of deliverance went painlessly on, 



1 From a sketch of the life of Lurancy Vennum, by E. W. 
Stevens, published in The Carrier Dove, a spiritualist paper of 
San Francisco, in 1887. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 145 

and not until the new soul voiced its presence did she 
show any sign of consciousness of what occurred." 1 

Mary Roff herself, it may be noted, suffered from 
acute hysteria, was under almost constant medical care, 
and by the neighbors generally was considered actually 
insane. She was often thrown spontaneously into a 
deep trance, sometimes suffering acute pain. 

In the summer of 1864 she seemed to have almost 
a mania for bleeding herself for relief, as she said, "of 
the lump of pain in the head." Drs. Fowler, Secrest, 
and Putwood, were called, and applied leeches. She 
would apply them herself to her temples, and liked 
them, treating them like little pets, until she seemed 
sound and well. 

On Saturday morning, July 16, 1864, in one of her 
desponding moods, she secretly took a knife with her 
to the back yard, and cut her arm terribly, until, bleed- 
ing excessively, she fainted. This occurred about 9 
a.m. She remained unconscious until 2 p.m., when 
she became a raving maniac of the most violent kind, 
in which condition she remained five days and nights, 
requiring almost constantly the services of five of the 
most able-bodied men to hold her on the bed, altho 
her weight was only one hundred pounds, and she 
had lost nearly all her blood. When she ceased raving 
she looked and acted quite natural and well, and could 
do everything she desired as readily and properly as 
at any time in her life. Yet she seemed to know no 
one, and could not recognize the presence of persons 
at all, altho the house was nearly filled with people 
night and day. She had no sense whatever of sight, 



'From an appendix to the above sketch by Dr. Cora Ellison. 



146 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

feeling, or hearing, in a natural way, as was proved by 
every test that could be applied. She could read blind- 
folded, and do everything as readily as when in health 
by her natural sight. She would dress, stand before 
the glass, open and search drawers, pick up loose pins, 
do anything and all things readily, and without annoy- 
ance, under heavy blindfoldings. 1 

This remarkable phenomenon of clairvoyance is at- 
tested to by numerous witnesses, including the physi- 
cians attending, the editor of the Iroquois County Re- 
publican, and later of the Danville Times, and the local 
clergymen. She repeatedly read lengthy extracts from 
closed books and the writing within sealed letters. 



Trom a biography of A. B. Roff, by Dr. Cora Ellison, in 
The Carrier Dove, a well-known spiritualist magazine. 




Frederic W. H. Myers 



A keen and earnest investigator of psychical phenomena, an eminent 
psychologist, and formulator of the hypothesis of the "subliminal self." 



"OUR RECORDS PROVE THE PERSISTENCE OF THE 
SPIRIT LIFE." 

I will briefly state facts which our records [the records of 
the Society for Psychical Research] have, to my mind, actually 
proved. 

In the first place, they prove survival, pure and simple; 
the persistence of the spirit's life as a structural law of the 
universe; the inalienable heritage of each several soul. In the 
second place, they prove that between the spiritual and the 
material worlds an avenue of communication does, in fact, 
exist — that which we call the despatch and the receipt of tele- 
pathic messages, or the utterance and the answer of prayer. 
In the third place, they prove that the surviving spirit retains, 
at least in some measure, the memories and the loves of earth. 
Without this persistence of love and memory, should we, in 
truth, be the same? To what extent has any philosophy or 
any revelation assured us of this until now? 

V 

********* 

For theses like the following, considerable evidence has al- 
ready been laid before the world: 

There exists in each of us a subliminal self; that is to say, 
a certain part of our being, conscious and intelligent, does not 
enter into our ordinary waking intelligence. 

This subliminal self exerts faculties above the normal; 
faculties, that is to say, which apparently transcend our known 
level of evolution. Some of these, as hyperesthesia (keener 
sensibility) and hypermesia (fuller memory), seem to be 
extensions of faculties already known. Others, however, alto- 
gether exceed our ordinary range of powers, as telepathy, or 
direct knowledge of other minds; clairvoyance, or direct knowl- 
edge of distant facts; retrocognition, or direct knowledge of 
past facts; and precognition, or knowledge of facts in the 
future. 

In this . . . environment where telepathy operates, many 
147 



148 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

intelligences may affect our own. Some of these are the 
minds of living persons; but some appear to be discarnate, 
that is, spirits like ourselves, but released from the body, al- 
though still retaining much of the personality of earth. These 
spirits appear still to have some knowledge of our world, and 
to be in certain ways able to affect it. The messages that 
reach us from this other world, although mixed with much 
triviality and confusion, are on the whole concordant. 

********* 
The discarnate spirit seeking to talk to earth sees a "light" — 
a glimmer of translucency in the confused darkness of our 
material world. This "light" indicates a sensitive — a human 
organism so constituted that a spirit can temporarily inform 
or control it, not necessarily interrupting the stream of the 
sensitive's ordinary consciousness; perhaps using a hand only, 
or, perhaps, as in Mrs. Piper's case, using voice as well as 
hand, and occupying all the sensitive's channels of self -mani- 
festation. 

Even in such fashion, through Mrs. Piper's trances the 
thronging multitude of the departed press to the glimpse of 
light. Eager, but untrained, they interject their uncompre- 
hended cries; vainly they call the names that no man answers; 
like birds that have beaten against a lighthouse, they pass 
in disappointment away. 

It is our duty to search for and train such other favored 
individuals as already show this form of capacity for medium- 
ship, always latent, perhaps, and now gradually emergent in 
the human race. The investigator must remember that this 
inquiry must be extended over many generations; nor must 
he allow himself to be persuaded that there are short cuts to 
mastery. I will not say that there cannot be any such things 
as occult wisdom, but every claim of this kind examined has 
proved deserving of complete distrust. We have no confidence 
here more than elsewhere in any methods except the open, 
candid, straightforward methods which the spirit of modern 
science demands. —Frederic W. H. Myers. 



CHAPTER VII 
CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 

Before we outline a few typical examples of clair- 
voyance, a word should be said regarding the nature 
of the phenomenon itself, for the medium is usually, 
but not necessarily, in a light trance, and this medium- 
istic trance state is accompanied by marked physiologic 
changes. 

The first stage is usually one of super-emotional ac- 
tivity. The medium "sighs deeply . . . yawns and hic- 
coughs." 1 Her facial expression may in a few mo- 
ments run the gamut of all the emotions. "Some- 
times," we are told of Eusapia, "her face flushes ; the 
eyes become brilliant and liquid, and are opened wide. 
The smile and the motions are the mark of the erotic 
ecstasy. She says 'mio caro' ('my dear'), leans her 
head upon the shoulder of her neighbor, and courts ca- 
resses when she believes that he is sympathetic. It is 
at this point that phenomena are produced, the success 
of which causes her agreeable and even voluptuous 
thrills. During this time her legs and her arms are in 
a state of marked tension, almost rigid, or even undergo 
convulsive contractions. Sometimes a tremor goes thru 
her entire body." 2 With other mediums the breathing 



^lammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 143. 
Hbid. 

149 



150 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

becomes labored, and, voluntarily or involuntarily, 
much slower. There may be a decided change in the 
heart action, the pulse often rising to one hundred and 
twenty times a minute. There may be semi-hysteria 
at this stage, sudden contractions of the muscles with 
a resultant twitching of the limbs, all of which are 
probably more painful to the spectator than to the sub- 
ject. 

To this often succeeds a second intermediate stage 
of quiescence and pallor. The limbs become relaxed 
listlessly or rigid; the eyes close; the face becomes 
deathly pale and the skin clammy and moist, "frequent- 
ly covered with perspiration." 

In the final and usual stage of mediumistic trance 
there is more natural action. The balls of the eyes 
are rolled up so that only the whites are visible, but 
the subject seldom appears to be in pain. The medium 
is now extremely sensitive to light, sudden light pro- 
ducing the physiologic and emotional effect of acute 
hysteria; and Maxwell believes that in extreme cases 
light might even prove fatal. There is hyperesthesia 
(increased sensibility) in all the nerve centers, and the 
whole body is sometimes in a shiver of continuous 
twitchings and tremblings. As to the medium's own 
feelings during this period, Flammarion has this to 
say of Eusapia: "She suddenly experiences an ardent 
desire to produce the phenomena ; then she has a feel- 
ing of numbness and the goose-flesh sensation in her 
fingers ; these sensations keep increasing ; at the same 
time she feels in the inferior portion of the vertebral 
column the flowing of a current which rapidly extends 
into her arms, as far as her elbows, where it is gently 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 151 

arrested. It is at this point that the phenomenon takes 
place." 1 

To this stage occasionally succeeds a fourth of deep 
torpor, complete obliviousness to all sensory stimuli 
like sound or light, regular but sometimes almost sus- 
pended breathing and heart action, and relaxation or 
rigidity of the limbs. 

Progression from one stage to another, and from 
consciousness to the trance state and vice versa, is, we 
should remember, spontaneous and apparently volun- 
tary with the medium. There is no hypnosis ; tho the 
coming of the trance state seems to be hastened by har- 
mony in the attendant circle, by low, pleasant noises, 
like soft singing, and by the linking of the circle of 
hands. 

There is every reason for thinking that the morbid 
phenomena accompanying the trance transition are un- 
natural, and due to our, as yet, imperfect understand- 
ing of essential conditions. Mrs. Piper's mediumship 
has so far improved of recent years that the transition 
is now accompanied with no more physical disturbance 
than a simple falling to sleep. Whereas in her early 
experiences she looked forward with more or less dread 
to the purely physical ordeal, there is now a calmness 
and utter lack of annoyance in the various stages of 
the trance state: 

With most manifestations there is, nevertheless, an 
unquestionably severe vital strain' on the physical forces 
of the medium. Those who have seen Home immedi- 
ately after some- remarkable exhibition of psychic pow- 
er, pale as death, his face covered with perspiration, 



'Flammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 142. 



152 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

and so weak as to be almost or quite in a fainting 
condition — few of those who have seen him thus, re- 
marks Sir William Crookes, could doubt the genuine- 
ness of the phenomena he exhibited. 



Clairvoyance 

Before attempting any explanation of clairvoyance 
or clairaudience, let us gain as clear an idea as possible 
of what they are, by giving some typical examples. 

Mr. Podmore quotes a simple case of alleged clair- 
voyance as told in a letter from Professor Gregory, of 
the University of Edinburgh, in which the latter tells of 
a lady, unknown to him personally, but hypnotized 
by a friend of his. By seemingly clairvoyant power, 
while in the trance, she described Professor Gregory's 
house in Edinburgh most accurately. 

"I now asked her to go to Greenock," continues Pro- 
fessor Gregory, "forty or fifty miles from where we 
were ... to visit my son, who resides there with a 
friend. She soon found him, and described him accu- 
rately, being much interested in the boy, whom she 
had never seen or heard of. She saw him, she said, 
playing in a field outside a small garden in which stood 
a cottage, at some distance from the town, on a rising 
ground. He was playing with a dog. I knew there 
was a dog, but had no idea of what kind, so I asked 
her. She said it was a large but young Newfoundland, 
black, with one or two white spots. It was very fond 
of the boy, and played with him. 'Oh ! a she cried sud- 
denly, 'it has jumped up and knocked off his cap.' She 
saw in the garden a gentleman reading a book and 
looking on. He was not old, but had white hair, while 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 153 

his eyebrows and whiskers were black. . . . Being 
asked to enter the cottage, she did so, and described the 
sitting-room. In the kitchen she saw a young maid- 
servant preparing dinner, for which a leg of mutton 
was roasting at the fire, but not quite ready. She also 
saw another elderly female. On looking again for the 
boy, she saw him playing with the dog in front of the 
door, while the gentleman stood in the porch and 
looked on. Then she saw the boy run upstairs to the 
kitchen, which, she observed with surprise, was on the 
upper floor of the cottage (which it is) and receive 
something to eat from the servant — she thought a 
potato. 

"I immediately wrote all these details down and sent 
them to the gentleman, whose answer assured me that 
all, down to the minutest, were exact, save that the boy 
did not get a potato, but a small biscuit, from the cook. 
The dog was what she described ; it did knock off the 
boy's cap at the time and in the place mentioned; he 
was himself in the garden with a book, looking on; 
there was a leg of mutton roasting and not quite ready ; 
there was an elderly female in the kitchen at that time, 
altho not of the household. Every one of which facts 
was entirely unknown to me, and could not, therefore, 
have been perceived by thought-reading, altho, had 
they been so, as I have already stated, this would not 
have been less wonderful, but only a different phenome- 
non." 

In the next two instances you will note that in each 
case the phenomena are ascribed to "spirits." But for 
the present we will ignore the cause of the phenomena, 



154 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

our purpose now being simply to establish the existence 
of clairvoyance in carefully recorded cases. 

Sir William Crookes tells of a lady who was "writing 
automatically by means of the planchet. I was try- 
ing to devise," he says, "a means of proving that what 
she wrote was not due to 'unconscious cerebration.' 
The planchet, as it always does, insisted that, altho 
it was moved by the hand and arm of the lady, the 
intelligence was that of an invisible being who was 
playing on her brain as on a musical instrument and 
thus moving her muscles. I therefore said to this in- 
telligence: 'Can you see the contents of this room?' 
'Yes/ wrote the planchet. 'Can you see to read this 
newspaper?' said I, putting my finger on a copy of 
the Times, which was on a table behind me, but with- 
out looking at it. 'Yes,' was the reply of the planchet. 
'Well,' I said, 'if you can see that, write the word which 
is now covered by my finger, and I will believe you.' 
The planchet commenced to move. Slowly, and with 
great difficulty, the word 'however' was written. I 
turned around and saw that the word 'however' was 
covered by the tip of my finger. 

"I had purposely avoided looking at the newspaper 
when I tried this experiment, and it was impossible 
for the lady, had she tried, to have seen any of the 
printed words, for she was sitting at one table and the 
paper was on another table behind, my body interven- 
ing." 1 

You will note that in this, as in the previous in- 
stance, neither party knew beforehand the information 
to be given. 



1 Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Set., Jan., 1874, pp. 91-2. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 155 

Dr. Funk quotes the following example of clairvoy- 
ance related by Dr. Savage from his own experience : 
Dr. Savage "said to a spirit that was writing through 
the hand of a young man : 

" 'If you are really a person, and are really here, you 
ought to be able to go somewhere in the city for me, 
and find out something at my request, return, and tell 
me about it.' 

"The spirit said he had never done anything of the 
kind, but would try. Dr. Savage sent him to his house 
to find out what Mrs. Savage was doing. Mrs. Sav- 
age had told the doctor before he left home that morn- 
ing that she would be away all forenoon. In four or 
five minutes the spirit returned and said : 'Mrs. Savage 
was at home, and when I was there she was standing 
in the front hall, saying good-by to a caller.' The doc- 
tor believed that she was anywhere but home. Yet it 
turned out that a caller had come, and Mrs. S. did not 
go elsewhere, as she had expected ; and on comparing 
notes, Dr. Savage found that at the time that the spirit 
said he called she was saying good-by to her guest." 1 

The following story of alleged clairvoyance during 
a dream appeared in the Paris Matin, a typical example 
of clairvoyance as met with in spiritualistic literature. 
It is, of course, valueless as proof, however, lacking as 
it does any documentary or testimonial corroboration. 

"A Rev. Dr. Perring, a minister near London, had 
recently buried his eldest son. Two nights after the 
funeral Mr. Perring saw in a dream his son covered 
with blood, and heard exactly the voice of his son say : 
'Oh, father, do come and stop them ; I cannot rest in 



'See Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 254. 



156 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

my coffin !' The poor father, very upset by the dream, 
tried to sleep again, when another vision came. He 
heard again the voice of his son shouting and scream- 
ing, and the words, 'Oh, father, they are pulling my 
body to pieces !' As soon as the daylight came the min- 
ister went to the church, and saw that the grave had 
been disarranged; and after further examination, that 
some one had been in in the night and had broken the 
jaws of the corpse and had stolen the teeth. After 
inquiry the police found the teeth at a dentist's in the 
locality." 

Another example of clairvoyance, somewhat more 
carefully attested, but still by itself unconvincing, is 
that related of a very remarkable contemporary boy 
medium, John Flottum, of Singsaas, in Norway. 

The exploit in question, typical of many similar ones 
performed by him, was the finding of the body of Helge 
Dehli, a wealthy farmer of the Tonset neighborhood. 
This was in June, 1907, and Flottum was at that time 
but thirteen years old. This case was investigated by 
the Christiania Aftenposten, one of the most important 
Norwegian dailies, and is considered by them convinc- 
ingly attested to. 

Flottum was not sent for till Dehli had been missing 
eight days, and every usual method of search had been 
exhausted in vain. Arrived at the Dehli farm, near 
Glommen, he looked at the missing man's photograph. 
Then suddenly he "hurried into the house and sat down 
to draw. The drawing gradually took shape until it 
represented a map of the surrounding country (a sec- 
tion unfamiliar to the boy), then he drew a line along 
the track which the missing man had taken after he 
left his home. 




WW 




The Famous Bertha Huse Case of Clairvoyance 

Lake near Enfield. 



Mrs. Edwin Huse, 
mother of Bertha. 



Mrs. Titus, 
the medium. 



The "Shaker Bridge," scene of the tragedy. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 157 

"The work was evidently a great effort to him. He 
supported his head with one hand, while with the other 
he traced the lines, bit by bit, with a long interval be- 
tween each stroke, while the perspiration ran down his 
face. . . . He saw the man with his 'inner vision' ; he 
saw him leave the house and wander along the track 
which he had marked out. . . . Now and then the man 
vanished from the boy's vision, and then the drawing 
came to a standstill." 

At such a point, with Dehli lying, to the boy's clair- 
voyant sight, under a large tree near a river, the boy, 
despite the most exhausting efforts, could go no fur- 
ther. Search was enthusiastically begun, however, by 
the whole parish, following the twisting trail marked 
on the boy's map, and next day the tree which the boy 
had seen was found. Dehli was not there, but his hand- 
kerchief was, and at sight of it the boy passed off into 
an even more painful trance. 

Early the next morning Flottum ordered a boat, 
which circled over the river as he directed. "Suddenly 
he stood up and exclaimed, 'This is where he lies!' 
And sure enough, the body was found at the very spot." 

In appearance Flottum is described as a lively, nor- 
mal, thoroly healthy boy. His clairvoyant power was 
not discovered till he was twelve years old, but he has 
already given many startling manifestations of his abil- 
ity. 

The Celebrated Case of Bertha Huse 

With the celebrated case of Bertha Huse, however, 
we seem to attain a new standard of care in investi- 
gating the claims alleged and in corroborating the facts 



158 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

in question. Were the Flottum and Matin cases un- 
supported by corroborative instances, we might dis- 
miss them offhand as coincidences, or even outright fic- 
tion ; but can we do the same with the Huse case ? 

On Monday, October I, 1898, a Miss Bertha Huse 
left her home at Enfield, N. H., before the rest of the 
family had arisen, and mysteriously disappeared. She 
was last seen alive by neighbors who noticed her walk- 
ing toward the so-called Shaker Bridge. Later in 
the day, alarmed at her inexplicable absence, the fam- 
ily instituted a search, and during the afternoon sev- 
eral hundred men and boys scoured the woods and 
near-by lake shore. This being fruitless, a Mr. Whit- 
ney, a local mill owner, sent to Boston for divers, and 
one named Sullivan searched the lake all day Tuesday, 
and Wednesday till noon, especially around the Shaker 
Bridge, on which Bertha had last been seen, but no 
trace of her was found. 

On this same Wednesday evening a Mrs. Titus, liv- 
ing in Lebanon, a village about five miles from Enfield, 
started in her doze with a horrified cry and unseeing, 
staring eyes, that so alarmed her husband that he woke 
her up. When he had shaken her into consciousness 
she said: "Why did you disturb me? In a moment 
I should have found that body." 

In the middle of the night his wife again woke him 
with moans, and this time he waited till she spoke. Still 
asleep, she said in a monotonous undertone: "She 
followed the road down to the bridge, and on getting 
part way across it, stepped out on that jutting beam 
which was covered by white frost. . . . While so stand- 
ing she slipped on a log, fell backward, and slid in un- 
derneath the timberwork of the bridge. You will find 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 159 

her lying head in, and you will only be able to see one 
of her rubbers projecting from the timberwork." 

Mr. Titus lighted a lamp and watched and talked 
with her for an hour in very low tones; when ques- 
tioned on this subject she would answer, but would not 
hear about other things. She said something about 
cold, and Mr. Titus said, "Are you cold, Nellie?" She 
said, "Oh, oh! I am awfully cold." (It was late fall; 
the water of the lake was almost freezing, and Mrs. 
Titus seemed to be speaking of the drowned girl.) 

Now, on Sunday, the day before the suicide of Ber- 
tha Huse, Mrs. Titus had said to her husband: 
"George, something awful is going to happen. I can- 
not tell you what it is, now, but can later on." On 
Monday morning, at 6.40, as he was leaving for the 
Mascoma Flannel Company's mill, where he worked, 
she said, shuddering, that it had "happened." It was 
not till that night that the Tituses heard of the girl's 
disappearance. 

On the morning following his wife's clairvoyant mes- 
sage (Thursday), at her earnest solicitation, Mr. Titus 
told it to Mr. Ayer, his employer, and to others ; and 
finally, the same day, the two went over to Enfield and 
enlisted the rather incredulous interest of Mr. Whit- 
ney. The diver listened to them both, but replied that 
he had searched in vain the previous day in the spot 
now indicated by Mrs. Titus as she stood on the bridge. 
She, however, was insistent. "You did not search 
there," she said, pointing more closely, and describing 
exactly the position in which the body lay. To humor 
her he put on his suit, and five minutes later brought 
the corpse to the surface. Unscrewing his helmet, he 
said: "I did not look in that place yesterday as the 



160 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

brush and debris were so thick there that I could not 
see; in fact, all I could feel of the body was the rubber 
projecting from the timberzvork" 

This would seem to be one of the most convincing 
cases of alleged clairvoyance on record, being care- 
fully investigated at the time by Dr. Harris Kennedy, 
of Roxbury, a cousin-in-law of Professor William 
James, of Harvard, and by the latter eminent psycholo- 
gist. The details are attested to by numerous wit- 
nesses, the full account being given in Volume I of 
the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical 
Research. 

Mrs. Titus had had occasional trances (involuntary), 
a tendency inherited from her mother, but had at the 
time little, if any, reputation as a spiritualist. She did 
not know Bertha Huse. Previous to finding the body, 
Mr. Titus had imparted his wife's message to a large 
number of reputable persons who now bear witness to 
the seeming reality of her powers. 

Several "natural" explanations of the case have been 
made, such as the fact that traces of footprints were 
seen on the bridge, the theory that Mrs. Titus, con- 
trary to both her own and her husband's testimony, 
might have been in Enfield at six o'clock that cold win- 
ter morning and have seen the girl commit suicide. 
But neither of these, improbable as they would seem 
in themselves, explain how Mrs. Titus could describe 
the exact position of the body. Sullivan, the diver, 
says: "She was lying in a deep hole, head down. It 
was so dark that I could not see anything ; I had to feel 
entirely." At this place the water was eighteen feet 
deep, and, as he says, completely dark; besides that, 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 161 

the supporting timbers of the bridge would have hid- 
den the body from the roadway. 

Subsequently the diver gave details of rescuing bod- 
ies, and added: "It is my business to recover bodies 
in the water, and I am not afraid of them ; but in this 
instance I was afraid of the woman on the bridge. 
. . . How can any woman come from four miles away, 
and tell me, or any other man, where I would find this 
body ?" 

I have detailed these examples of clairvoyance be- 
cause they are typical. But do not suppose they are 
isolated cases. Nearly all instances of clairaudience 
include clairvoyance; and of simple clairvoyance the 
literature of spiritualism abounds in examples. Sir 
William Crookes quotes several, substantiated in the 
most precise terms ; the note-books and published works 
of the Rev. Stainton Moses, the great English medium, 
are full of cases; Myers gives a score in his Human 
Personality, especially the very striking, if horrible, 
Storie case; other instances are noted by Dr. Funk, 
Mr. Podmore, Dr. Hyslop, and other writers on the 
subject. I shall quote some of these later in the discus- 
sion of the closely allied telepathic phenomena. 

Clairaudience 

Clairaudience seems to differ from clairvoyance in 
two respects. It seldom occurs except in combination 
with clairvoyance, and it generally consists of a sin- 
gle detached sound or a short sentence. I have seen 
no record, for instance, of the receipt, clairaudiently, 
of an extended discourse. 

We do have, on the other hand, such incidents as 
that related by Commander T. Aylesbury, of Sutton, 



162 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Surrey, where a drowning boy utters a cry that is heard 
by both his mother and his sister in England, fourteen 
thousand miles away. 1 We have the case quoted by 
Dr. Funk, where two sisters in Brooklyn hear a brother 
in Texas, whom they believed was dead, inquiring 
about a letter. 2 We have the example, also noted in 
The Widow's Mite, of the Jeannette. "A few years ago 
the wife of one of the officers on board of the Jean- 
nette, 5 the vessel sent by the New York Herald to ex- 
plore the polar seas, wrote to me that one night she 
was suddenly awakened, and was amazed to see her 
husband at her bedside. He said to her, 'Count, 
count.' She says that she heard distinctly a ship's bell. 
She heard the word again, 'Count.' She counted six 
strokes, when he said, 'Six bells, and the Jeannette is 
lost,' and the vision disappeared. She wrote that 'the 
Jeannette was lost at the time I had that vision.' " 

Another case in which the human voice is carried 
many hundred miles is noted in the Proceedings of 
the Society for Psychical Research. 

"On September 9, 1848, at the siege of Mooltan, 
Major-General R., C.B., then adjutant of his regi- 
ment, was most severely and dangerously wounded, 
and, supposing himself dying, asked one of the officers 
with him to take the ring off his finger and send it to 
his wife, who at the time was fully one hundred and 
fifty miles distant, at Ferozepore. 

" 'On the night of September 9, 1848, I was lying on 
my bed,' " says his wife, who tells the story, " 'between 



^yers : Phantoms of the Living, v. 2, pp. 227-8. 
*Funk: The Widow's Mite, pp. 312-14. 
'Ibid., p. 311. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 168 

sleeping and waking, when I distinctly saw my hus- 
band being carried off the field, seriously wounded, 
and heard his voice saying, "Take this ring off my 
finger and send it to my wife." All the next day I 
could not get the sight or the voice out of my mind. 
In due time I heard of General R. having been severely 
wounded in the assault on Mooltan. He survived, 
however, and is still living. It was not for some time 
after the siege that I heard from Colonel L., the offi- 
cer who helped to carry General R. off the field, that 
the request as to the ring was actually made to him, 
just as I had heard it at Ferozepore at that very 
time.' "* 

What Is Clairvoyance? 

For these cases of clairvoyance and clairaudience, 
assuming, if necessary, for the moment, that they are 
genuine occurrences, there is, of course, the immediate 
and easy explanation of "spiritual" intervention. 

But, leaving spirits for a moment out of it, is there, 
first, no possibility of any other, any "natural" explan- 
ation ? For if there is, we are bound to advance it. 

In the first place, I venture to assert that we dare 
not, from our present knowledge, set any limits to the 
possible powers of our mere bodily organism. A man 
would immediately say, for example, "Why not 'set 
limits'? My will, for example, can move only my arm 
and what my arm can touch — in other words, only those 
objects which are actually in contact with the 'proto- 
plasmic skeleton' which represents the life of my or- 
ganism." Yet a moment's thought will show that this 



*S. P. R. Proceedings, v. i, pt. i, pp. 30-1. 



164. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

is not strictly true. "I can sometimes," says Myers, 
"move objects not in actual contact, as by melting them 
with the heat, or (in . . . dry air . . .) kindling them 
with the electricity which my fingers emit. And," he 
goes on, "I see no very definite limit to this power. 
I do not know all the forms of energy which my fin- 
gers might, under suitable training [or suitable condi- 
tions], emit." 1 How prophetic these words of Myers 
are is brought home by the fact that, as we saw in the 
second article on Eusapia Paladino, Lombroso has very 
recently suggested with some basis that the human 
body is itself continually emitting hitherto unknown 
radiations allied to the mysterious "N-rays !" 

But if we are, after all, still ignorant of all the pos- 
sible powers of the body, how much more are we igno- 
rant of the limits to be set for the abilities of the "self" 
which controls that body! And especially does our 
ignorance appear overwhelming when we consider, as 
we have done, that this "self" of ours is not a simple 
unit, but includes a whole host of "subliminal" parts, 
of which we have hardly as yet so much as proved the 
existence. 

We already have, however, a collection of phenom- 
ena acting as a guide, because they illustrate very un- 
usual abilities of this same "subliminal self," namely, 
the phenomena of hypnotism. The hypnotic trance, we 
remember, simply means, according to» Myers' theory, 
that the subject's body is temporarily under the con- 
trol of some one of the subliminal parts of his own 
"self." 

Each of these selves which develop under hypnosis 



^yers: Human Personality, p. 313. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 165 

has its own individuality, its own knowledge and feel- 
ings and memories. At one stage of hypnosis, for 
example, the subject may be under the control of a 
part of his subliminal self, which we will call "X." 
"X" thinks that he is Professor So-and-so, of the Uni- 
versity of So-and-so, and he will act, speak, talk and 
think as that professor would. Wake the subject up, 
and he will have no memory of his "professor" state, 
when the "X" part of his personality had control ; but 
put him back (by hypnotizing him again) into the "X" 
condition, and he will pick up again the "professor" 
life just where he left off with it a little before, remem- 
bering all that he did in his former trance, but nothing 
of his own life outside it. 

But there is something even more interesting. When 
the subject is in "X" state let the hypnotizer say to 
him, "Sixty minutes from now shut the window behind 
you." The subject is then awakened, and remembers 
absolutely nothing of his "X" state or of the command 
given him while in it. But exactly sixty minutes later, 
unconsciously, and without knowing why he does it, 
the subject gets up and closes the window indicated. 
Deep down in his subliminal self, in that "X" part of 
his personality unknown to his consciousness, that com- 
mand was waiting all the time, and when the moment 
came it rushed up from below the threshold and made 
the body for a moment obey it. 

Now — and this is the significant point — a study of 
hypnotism shows us that the subliminal self, when it 
thus has temporary control of the body, is able to do 
very unusual things. When it pleases, it is able, for 
instance, to do what the conscious will can never do — 
change the tissue structure of the body. That is, a man, 



166 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

in certain stages and conditions of Hypnosis, not only 
can imagine, in answer to the hypnotizer's suggestion, 
that he is burned, but can actually, by thinking, raise a 
blister on the spot indicated. 

For some years psychologists have been aware of a 
very remarkable phenomena, known as stigmatization. 
The name came from the fact that its earliest sponta- 
neous manifestations were the result of brooding over 
"the stigmata of Christ's passion — the marks of 
wounds in hands and feet and side." It was soon found 
that these morbid imaginings could actually produce 
upon the subject the marks of the wounds. This is 
another case of the subliminal self's control over the 
tissues of the body ; for stigmatization is merely a step 
further. The subject has put himself into a semi- 
hypnotic state ; instead of being hypnotized by an ex- 
ternal mind, he has put himself under the control of 
his own subliminal self. 

But this part of the personality can do more than 
change tissue structure. By suggestion, for example, 
the hypnotic subject's eyes may be made to run as he 
smells of simple water ; and conversely, obeying a simi- 
lar suggestion, the fumes of strong ammonia may cause 
not a tear. Here we have control of the secretions. 
The subliminal self can make the muscles as rigid as 
stone (catalepsis) ; it can create or dissipate hunger, 
alcoholism, and other desires and appetites, almost at 
will ; it can, to a certain extent, nullify or restore any 
of the senses. 

Doing all these things, it was very early seen that 
hypnosis was an efficient agent in the cure of disease. 
Let the patient but put himself partly under the con- 
trol of his subliminal self, and results so marvelous as 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 167 

to seem almost "miraculous" may be effected. Mind- 
cure, so called — "suggestive therapeutics" — is nothing 
new to the psychologist, nor original to the Christian 
Science denomination, as the latter would sometimes 
have us believe. Christian Science does deserve every 
credit, however, for emphasizing in a large way its 
remedial practicability. 

Doing these things too, knowing that we are but be- 
ginning to open up a vast domain of unknown powers 
governed by the subliminal portion of our conscious- 
ness, powers infinitely greater and more wonderful 
than those exerted by the conscious self, and in further 
view of the large evidence for the occurrence of the 
phenomena, we would seem to have a ground sufficient 
to prevent a dogmatic denial of the very possibility of 
at least occasional cases of genuine clairvoyance. 

Precognition, or Prophecy 

Rarely, but occasionally, in the history of spiritual- 
ism, occur cases of actual precognition, or prophecy, 
when the clairvoyant sight of the medium, in some 
wonderful way, seems actually to pierce the veil of the 
future. Mere flashes of this precognitive knowledge 
we call premonitions; these will be considered later. 
But here are two very striking and carefully attested 
cases of clairvoyant prophecy. The first is the account 
of a Mrs. McAlpine, quoted in the Report on the Cen- 
sus of Hallucinations, and corroborated by a sister of 
Mrs. McAlpine and the local papers : x 

"I remember in the June of 1889, I drove to Castle- 
blaney, a little town in the County Monaghan, to meet 



Reported in S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 9, p. 416. 



168 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

my sister, who was coming by train from Longford. 
I expected her at three o'clock, but as she did not come 
with that train, I got the horse put up, and went for a 
walk in the demesne. The day was very warm and 
bright, and I wandered on under the shade of the trees 
to the side of a lake, which is in the demesne. Being 
at length tired, I sat down to rest upon a rock at the 
edge of the water. My attention was quite taken up 
with the extreme beauty of the scene before me. There 
was not a sound or movement, except the soft ripple 
of the water on the sand at my feet. Presently I felt a 
cold chill creep thru me, and a curious stiffness of my 
limbs, as if I could not move, though wishing to do so. 
I felt frightened, yet chained to the spot, and as if im- 
pelled to stare at the water straight in front of me. 
Gradually a black cloud seemed to rise, and in the midst 
of it I saw a tall man, in a suit of tweed, jump into the 
water and sink. 

"In a moment the darkness was gone, and I again 
became sensible of the heat and sunshine, but I was 
awed, and felt 'eerie' — it was then about four o'clock 
or so — I cannot remember either the exact time or date. 
On my sister's arrival I told her of the occurrence ; she 
was surprised, but inclined to laugh at it. When we 
got home I told my brother; he treated the subject in 
much the same manner. However, about a week after- 
ward, Mr. Espie, a bank clerk (unknown to me), com- 
mitted suicide by drowning in that very spot. He left 
a letter for his wife, indicating that he had for some 
time contemplated his death. My sister's memory of 
the event is the only evidence I can give. I did not 
see the account of the inquest at the time, and did not 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 169 

mention my strange experience to any one, saving my 
sister and brother." 1 

Another example was communicated to Professor 
Richet by Professor Thoulet. 

"During the summer of 1867 I was officially the as- 
sistant, but in reality the friend, in spite of difference 
in age, of M. F., a former officer in the navy, who had 
gone into business. We were trying to set on foot 
again the exploitation of an old sulphur mine at Riva- 
nazzaro, near Voghera, in Piedmont, which had been 
long abandoned on account of a falling in. . . . 

"I knew that Madame F., who lived at Toulon, and 
with whom I was slightly acquainted, would soon be 
confined. . . . 

"M. F. and I slept in adjoining rooms, and as it was 
hot, we left the door between them open. One morn- 
ing I sprang suddenly out of bed, crossed my room, 
entered that of M. F., and awakened him by crying 
out : 'You have just got a little girl ; the telegram 
says . . .' Upon this I began to read the telegram. 
M. F. sat up and listened ; but all at once I understood 
that I had been asleep, and that consequently my tele- 
gram was only a dream, not to be believed ; and then, 
at the same time, this telegram, which was somehow 
in my hand, and of which I had read about three lines 
aloud, word for word, seemed to withdraw from my 
eyes as if some one were carrying it off open ; the words 
disappeared, though their image still remained; those 
which I had pronounced remained in my memory, while 
the rest of the telegram was only a form. 



^rom the Report on the Census of Hallucinations in the 
S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 10, p. 332. 



170 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

"I stammered something; M. F. got up and led me 
into the dining-room, and made me write down the 
words I had pronounced; when I came to the lines 
which, though they had disappeared from my memory, 
still remained pictured in my eye, I replaced them by 
dots, making a sort of drawing of them. Remark that 
the telegram was not written in common terms; there 
were about six lines of it, and I had read more than 
two of them. . . . 

"Two or three days after I left for Toree ; I tried in 
vain to remember the rest of the telegram ; I went on 
to Turin, and eight or ten days after my dream I re- 
ceived the following telegram from M. F. : 'Come di- 
rectly. You were right.' 

"I returned to Rivanazzaro, and M. F. showed me a 
telegram which he had received the evening before. 
I recognized it as the one I had seen in my dream ; the 
beginning was exactly what I had written, and the end, 
which was exactly like my drawing, enabled me to 
read again the words which I saw again. Please re- 
mark that the confinement had taken place the evening 
before, and therefore the fact was not that I, being in 
Italy, had seen a telegram which already existed in 
France — this I might with some difficulty have under- 
stood — but that I had seen it ten days before it existed, 
or could have existed, since the event it announced had 
not yet taken place. I have turned this phenomenon over 
in my memory, and reasoned about it many times, try- 
ing to explain it, to connect it with something, with a 
previous conversation, with some mental tension, with 
an analogy, a wish — and all in vain." 




William T. Stead 

Editor of the English "Review of Reviews," writer and humanitarian- 
an earnest believer in spiritualism. 



"I DO NOT BELIEVE THE DEAD DEPART." 

The question, "Do the Dead Return?" is best answered by 
asking another question: "Do the dead depart?" 

I do not believe the dead depart. They are still with us, 
closer and nearer than they ever were before they laid aside 
this earthly vesture of decay. 

The space at my disposal is too brief to set forth even in 
barest outline the reasons which have brought me to this 
conviction. But they are such that I do not believe any fair- 
minded, inteligent person, who will devote himself to a care- 
ful examination of the phenomena on which this conviction 
rests, will come to any other conclusion than that at which 
I have arrived. 

Recent scientific discoveries have rendered the hypothesis of 
communication between the living and the so-called dead 
much more thinkable by the average man that it was fifty 
or even fifteen years since. Photography, the telephone, the 
X-rays and wireless telegraphy are accustoming mankind to 
the possibility of many things which our fathers would have 
dismissed as absolutely incredible. Fifty years ago the possi- 
bility of holding vocal converse with a friend at a distance of a 
hundred miles would have been scouted as scientifically out 
of the question. To hear a voice while seeing no man was 
in former times deemed so uncanny an experience as to justify 
an assumption of a supernatural agency. 

All previous generations, as the result of invariable expe- 
rience, linked together as an obvious axiom that when the 
ear could hear the eye must be able to see the speaker. That 
assumption has been broken down by the telephone. 

Wireless telegraphy has familiarized us with the possibility 
of transmitting thought by electric waves even across the 
Atlantic without the need of a telegraph cable. The phe- 
nomena of thought-reading or telepathy have shown that 
mind can communicate with mind without an electric battery. 
171 



172 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

All these things have done much to break down skepticism, 
and I no longer fear being written down as a lunatic when 
I say that I have the same confidence as to the certainty of 
communication with friends who have passed over into the 
other world as I have in our ability to talk through the tele- 
phone to distant friends. 

Several years ago a dearly loved friend of mine promised 
me that if she passed over before I did she would endeavor 
to do four things: (i) She would use my hand by means of 
automatic writing to communicate with me; (2) she would 
make herself visible in her habit as she lived to one or more 
of her friends who possessed the gift of seeing; (3) she would 
come and be photographed; (4) she would control some medium 
and give me a message hall-marked as genuine by a private 
sign known only to her and myself. 

Within a year of her death she did all four. She wrote with 
my hand describing her experiences after her transition. She 
appeared once in broad daylight in the street to one friend. 
To another she appeared in a well-lighted dining-room when 
dinner was being served, and she also appeared to a third less 
publicly. She has been photographed four or five times, the 
portrait being instantly recognizable by all who knew her, 
although except to clairvoyants no form was visible before the 
camera. None of the photographs so produced was identical 
with any of those taken during her earth-life. The fourth and 
last test was given unexpectedly by a strange medium to a 
friend of mine. It referred to an incident that transpired at 
her death, and it was accompanied by the mathematical sym- 
bol which we had privately agreed upon as the one which 
should be the test or hall-mark of her identity. 

—William T. Stead. 



CHAPTER VIII 
GHOSTS 

Perhaps no one class of spiritualistic phenomena 
bulks more important in the popular imagination than 
that of apparitions of the dead. Indeed, "ghosts," if 
the spiritualist can prove that they exist, whatever 
explanation we put upon their appearance, must be 
conceded an important link in our chain of evidence 
regarding a life after death. 

Very early in its career the Society for Psychical 
Research, under the leadership of Mr. Edmund Gur- 
ney, undertook the study of apparitions, and with such 
success that they were soon able to assert that they 
had proved there were such things as "ghosts" They 
compiled, over a period of many months, a careful Cen- 
sus of Hallucinations observed by over seventeen thou- 
sand individuals. The work was in the hands of a 
special committee, of which Mr. Frank Podmore, Pro- 
fessor Henry Sidgewick and F. W. H. Myers were 
members, and associated with them were some four 
hundred enumerators. 

These last were asked to propound to twenty-five 
adults, chosen at random, the following question : 

"Have you ever, when believing yourself to be com- 
pletely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or be- 
ing touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of 
173 



174 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could 
discover, was not due to any external physical cause?" 

Every effort was made to remove bias, pro or con, 
and to secure honest answers, without regard to the 
possible final result. 

This result was, however, as we have seen, startling. 
After deducting all questionable hallucinations due by 
any possibility to sleep or disease (insanity or de- 
lirium), there remained one thousand six hundred and 
eighty-four answers, or ten per cent., more or less 
strongly affirmative. Three hundred and fifty-two of 
these "ghosts" which were seen were apparitions of 
living persons, and one hundred and sixty-three appa- 
ritions of the dead. But, more than this, sixty-three 
of these were circumstantially attested apparitions al- 
most or quite coincident (within twelve hours) with 
the time of death. Allowance on the one hand for pos- 
sible lapse of memory, and on the other every leeway 
for possible error, fraud, or coincidence in the testi- 
mony, reduced the number of accepted coincidences 
one-third. 

Perhaps the startling nature of the fact just given 
is not at first sight apparent. Here we have a half 
hundred people out of seventeen thousand-odd who say 
that they saw a ghost of a person within twelve hours 
of that person's death. Well, what of it? you say. Ad- 
mitting these people are honest in their belief, you 
prove nothing ; it may have been all their imagination ; 
as the scientist would say, their "ghosts" were all hal- 
lucinatory, apparitions which existed merely in the 
minds of the percipients, and without any objective 
quality. 

But the committee combined with their census a 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 175 

few statistics. It took but very little simple mathe- 
matics to ascertain that at the current annual death 
rate for England and Wales (19.15 per 1,000 in 1890) 
the chances that any given person would die on a 
given day were nineteen thousand to one. This meant 
that, if nineteen thousand apparitions of living persons 
were witnessed on a given day, one, and one only, 
by the laws of chance, should be that of a person dying, 
about to die, or recently dead. 

But — and mark you, this is the significant point — 
we have in the Census, as we have seen, not twice or 
even a hundred times this number, but over four hun- 
dred times this number which, by chance alone, should 
have occurred. 

The complete results of the Census were printed in 
Myers' Phantasms of the Living and in the Proceed- 
ings of the Society, together with all the figures ob- 
tained, and the methods and allowances used in secur- 
ing the final result. Not a person, after an examina- 
tion of the evidence, can question the absolute fair- 
ness of calculation and the large margin of possible 
error allowed. Yet the Census rendered unavoidable 
this very striking, and, indeed, epoch-making conclu- 
sion, which the committee italicized : "Between deaths 
and apparitions of the dying person a connection exists 
which is not due to chance. This we hold as a proved 
fact." 

And the point is not merely that in some mysterious 
way a person is more likely at about the time of an- 
other person's death to see (or think he sees) an appa- 
rition of that person. If we think a moment we see 
that the real truth is deeper and more important. 

In most of the cases the "percipient" (the person 



170 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

who saw the apparition) did not know that the person 
was dying (or dead) : in very many cases he was not 
thinking of the dying person at all, and did not even 
know that he was ill, or (if death was due to an acci- 
dent) that he was in any possibility of danger. In 
other words, there would be no reason why the per- 
cipient should at that moment see an apparition, except 
that at that moment the apparition did really exist. 
One man might, some day, happen to have an hallu- 
cination of a man at that moment dying. But if a 
hundred men "happen" to have hallucinations of peo- 
ple at that moment they are dying, we have every 
reason to say that here is something more than mere 
hallucination — that the ghosts seen really do exist. 

And striking as this mathematical proof is, it is still 
not the most convincing, as Myers well points out. 

"I must add that while this argument from statis- 
tics and percentages . . . constitutes technically the 
strongest support of the thesis of causal connection 
between deaths and apparitions, it is yet by no means 
the only support, nor even the most practically con- 
vincing. Those deaths and those apparitions are not 
mere simple momentary facts — as tho we were deal- 
ing with two clocks which struck simultaneously. Each 
is a complex occurrence, and the correspondence is 
often much more than a mere coincidence of time alone. 
Sometimes, indeed, the alleged coincidence is so de- 
tailed and intimate that, if the evidence for a single 
case is fully believed, the case is enough to carry con- 
viction." 1 



'Myers : Human Personality, v. I, pp. 573-4- 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 177 



"Spirit Photography" 

If a "ghost" can make impression on the eye — that 
is, be seen — why can it not make an impression on a 
photographic plate? More than this, since the pho- 
tographic plate is incontestably more sensitive than the 
human eye, that is, sensitive to rays that we cannot 
"see" at all, what more possible — nay, even probable — 
than that the camera shall record the presence of 
"ghosts" utterly invisible to the eye? And what fur- 
ther or stronger proof, continues the advocate of "spirit 
photography," what further or stronger proof is neces- 
sary in support of apparitions than the appearance of 
unmistakable pictures of them upon a photographic 
plate ? The camera cannot lie. 

There is the crux of the discussion of this particular 
class of phenomena ; we know very well that the cam- 
era is, on occasion, a most accomplished and unblush- 
ing liar; so much so, indeed, that those best qualified 
to judge look on every spirit photograph with well- 
founded suspicion. The subject is, however, one so 
closely allied with that of apparitions, and so widely 
considered a part of spiritism, that before proceeding 
further with our "ghosts" we will examine it a little, 
if only to dismiss it from consideration. 

"Fraud has been writ large over spirit photography," 
says Dr. Funk, "and all spirit photographs are viewed 
by the public with more suspicion, perhaps, than is any 
other class of psychic phenomena." 1 "That these spirit 
photographs," adds Mr. Carrington, "can be produced 
by trickery no one doubts who is acquainted with the 



Tunk: The Widow's Mite, p. 451. 



178 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

evidence and the facts in the case. Granting that the 
medium is free to manipulate the plates, before, during 
and after the seance, or at any one of these times, it 
is well known that he is able to produce exact repro- 
ductions of supposedly spirit forms by purely fraudu- 
lent means. . . ." 1 

And continuing, Mr. Carrington outlines some of 
the numerous ways in which fraudulent spirit photo- 
graphs may be produced. 

"By a clever device, the sensitive plate may be im- 
pressed with the figure of a ghost while in the dark 
slide, on the way to or from the operating-room, or 
even while in the camera itself. Indeed, twenty differ- 
ent varieties of deceptions may be practiced without 
exposure. A common artifice is to place a microscopic 
picture within the camera box, so that, by means of a 
small magnifying lens, its image may be thrown upon 
the plate. Spectral effects may also be produced by 
covering the back of a sensitive plate with pieces of 
cut paper, and using artifices well known to retouch- 
ers. . . . Extraordinary spectral effects, such as that 
of a man shaking hands with his own ghost, cutting 
off his own hand, or followed by his own dopple ganger, 
may be produced by 'masking,' a process which it 
would take too long to describe here. There is scarcely 
any conceivable absurdity in portraiture which may 
not be accomplished by the camera ; and the peculiari- 
ties of the business are so extraordinary, the opportuni- 
ties for humbug so excellent, and the methods and mod- 
ifications of methods whereby spirit photographs may 



Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 206. 



ARE THE DEAD ALP7E? 179 

be manufactured, so numerous, that it is hopeless for 
any person totally ignorant of photography to detect 
fraud." 1 

Undoubtedly the most usual method of deception, 
however, is the device of "double exposure," a trick 
perfectly familiar to every photographer. The sight 
of the hazy "ghost" in the developt picture, with the 
furniture behind it showing dimly thru its "spectral" 
robes, is quite convincing — unless you know how it 
is done. 

I cannot forbear quoting here a description, most 
amusing in its naivete, of another mediumistic trick 
closely allied to spirit photography. 

"Sometimes a circle is treated to the rare sight of 
seeing a picture form or materialize before their eyes, 
when no human hand is touching the canvas, the pic- 
ture apparently forming upon it of its own accord! 
This is a most astonishing test. Here is the explana- 
tion: 

"A picture is made with concentrated solutions of 
sulphocyanide of potassium, ferrocyanide of potassium 
and tannin, all of which will be invisible until brought 
out by the proper reagent. This is a weak solution 
of tincture of iron, which is thrown upon the canvas 
by means of an atomizer. The first then comes out 
red, the second blue, and the third black. Either the 
medium, or a confederate, creeps behind the canvas 
during the seance, and thoroly sprays over the back 
of the picture, when it will develop as stated. In order 
to cover the sound of the atomizer, a music-box is set 



'Carrington ; Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p, 216, 



180 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

going, or the sitters are requested to sing 'Nearer, 
My God, to Thee.' m 

But altho the evidence is strongly presumptive of 
fraud in nearly every case of spirit photography, it 
would be hardly fair to the spiritualists to leave the 
subject without citing at least one comparatively well- 
attested case on the other side. This particular ex- 
periment was performed by the Rev. J. T. Wills, D.D., 
pastor of the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church, 
San Francisco, Cal., and is quoted by Dr. Funk. "I 
wish to say that for some time past my friend, Dr. 
W. J. Pierce, of this city, had been telling me some 
strange things about spirit photography, which seemed 
to be incredible, and but for the fact that they were 
told me by such a man as Dr. Pierce, I should have 
paid no attention to them; but having known him 
for over thirty years as a man of truth, I could not 
doubt his word for one moment, but fearing it possible 
that the doctor might be deceived in some way in the 
matter, I said to him that I would like to see for my- 
self how the thing was done, and, if possible, find out 
the secret of the process ; and so to gratify my wish, 
the doctor made an engagement with the medium, Mr. 
Edmund Wyllie, to meet me at the doctor's office on 
April i, at 4 p.m., where the doctor has a dark room, 
and all the equipment for photography development 
purposes. At the time appointed I went, and on my 
way I called at a place where photographic supplies 
are sold, and bought a half dozen 4x5 Crown-Cramer 
sensitized plates, and took them with me in my coat 
pocket to the office, where I met the medium, who 



Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 222-3. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 181 

impressed me as being an honest man. After some 
little talk with him, I told him I wanted to test the 
matter for myself, and that I would like him to wash 
his hands, which he did, first in alcohol, then with 
soap and water, then again in alcohol, and then he dried 
them thoroly with a clean towel ; and when his hands 
were examined, and found to be perfectly clean, we 
went into the dark room, which was not really dark, 
but was lighted with a little lamp with orange-color 
light, such as photographers use in the developing- 
room. Then I took the plates out of my pocket and 
took one plate out of the package, and after marking 
it on one corner, thus, <?, and holding it at each cor- 
ner of the end toward me, I held the plate toward the 
medium, who placed his hands, the one on top of the 
other, underneath, holding the plate between his palms, 
while I continued to hold on to the corners and never 
let it go from my grasp for one instant, until, to my 
surprise, ... I heard three distinct taps upon the 
plate; then the medium removed his hands and I put 
the plate at once into the developer and developt it 
myself. Neither was it out of my possession for one 
second from the time that I bought it, some four blocks 
away, until I had it fully developt; and to my aston- 
ishment . . . there was the face of a lady on it, and 
that so plain, that it has been recognized by my daugh- 
ter as the likeness of a lady who was never in Cali- 
fornia, and who died in England several years ago." 1 
Apparitions of the Living 
But certainly not spirit photography, and perhaps 
not even that summing up of the Census of Hallucina- 



^uoted in Funk: The Widow's Mite, pp. 463-4. 



182 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

tions, seem to be sufficient reason for such a daringly- 
positive statement as the following one of Dr. Savage : 

"There is no sort of question that there are phan- 
tasms of both the dead and living ; but no scientific man 
takes that as proving immortality. It simply raises 
a question as to what they are and what they mean. 
But that what we call ghosts exist, no unprejudiced 
student has the slightest doubt." 1 

Once again I feel called upon to repeat a warning 
that I have already given. I cannot, in any brief 
space, begin to give the complete arguments for or 
against any of the propositions here submitted. For 
complete briefs of either side, for circumstantial, re- 
peated and detailed examples, the interested reader 
must turn to the works cited. If he thinks he dis- 
covers a flaw in the writer's presentation, he must re- 
member that the omission was purposed, and, indeed, 
rendered necessary by the treatment adopted. 

But let him remember this : there are no gaps wit- 
tingly left which have not been satisfactorily filled in 
the primary sources : my purpose is to give a condensa- 
tion of the results obtained by others, to summarize 
the salient points in the work of many men. When I 
state that the Census "seems to prove" the coincidence 
of death apparitions, I mean that the reader who dis- 
covers apparent loopholes in my presentation will find, 
on reference to the original work, that probably all 
his objections were foreseen and adequately answered. 
Did the Census itself fail to present a connected chain 
of argument, I would so have stated. To enter into 
any exhaustive study of the evidence would mean, not 



lavage : Life After Death, p. 257. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 183 

a series of short articles, but a series of volumes. I can 
here but digest, with typical examples, the results ob- 
tained by reputable men who have themselves made the 
exhaustive research. 

For the truth of the occurrence of apparitions of 
living persons there is a formidable amount of evi- 
dence; so much so, that Dr. Funk, among many oth- 
ers, says, "it now seems certain." 

"Whether," he adds, "this vision is mental, or seen 
by the eye, is not yet certainly established. It is cer- 
tain that the person who sees the vision is often as 
sure that he sees with his eyes as he is of anything else 
that his eyes see. . . ." x 

The first instance I shall give is a premonitory one 
(that is, one shortly before death), and is related by the 
distinguished scientist, Dr. Geo. J. Romanes, F.R.S. 

"Toward the end of March, 1878, in the dead of the 
night, while believing myself to be awake, I thought 
the door at the head of my bed was opened, and a 
white figure passed along the side of the bed to the 
foot, where it faced about and showed me it was cov- 
ered, head and all, with a shroud. Then, with its 
hands it suddenly parted the shroud over the face, re- 
vealing between its two hands the face of my sister, 
who was ill in another room. I exclaimed her name, 
whereupon the figure vanished instantly. Next day 
(and certainly on account of the shock given me by 
the above experience) I called in Sir W. Jenner, who 
said my sister had not many days to live. She died, 
in fact, very soon afterward. 

"I was in good health, without any grief or anxiety. 



x Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 390. 



184* ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

My sister was being; attended by our family doctor, 
who did not expect anything serious ; therefore, I had 
no anxiety at all on her account, nor had she herself. 
I have never, either before or after this, had such an 
experience. . . " x 

This is but a sample of a very large number of such 
"premonitory apparitions" contained in the records of 
the Society for Psychical Research. Several others 
will be given later in the consideration of premonitions 
as such. 

The Projection of the "Astral Body"? 

If ghosts of living persons can occur spontaneously 
there is, of course, the possibility that they can be 
produced at will; and, indeed, we find that there are 
on record a number of such successful attempts. One 
very striking case seen by a Miss G., happened in 
broad daylight, and was the result of a strong effort 
of will power on the part of a Mr. Kirk, who made 
the attempt thus to project his own "ghost." 

"A peculiar occurrence happened to me on the 
Wednesday of the week before last," says Miss G., 
reporting the case to the Society. "In the afternoon 
(being tired by a morning walk), while sitting in an 
easy chair near the window of my room, I fell asleep. 
At any time I happen to sleep during the day (which 
is but seldom), I invariably awake with tired, uncom- 
fortable sensations, which take some little time to pass 
off; but that afternoon, on the contrary, I was sud- 
denly quite wide awake, seeing Mr. Kirk standing near 
my chair, dressed in a dark-brown coat, which I had 
frequently seen him wear. His back was toward the 



^yslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 49, 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 185 

window, his right hand toward me; he passed across 
the room toward the door . . . but when he got about 
four feet from the door, which was closed, he disap- 
peared." 1 

Another case, reported at length by Mr. Myers, is 
remarkable for two reasons : there were two percipients 
and the experiment was repeated, each time success- 
fully. The evidence was closely examined by Mr. Gur- 
ney, and is corroborated in many important details, 
and is remarkably strong thruout. The account is 
written by Mr. S. H. B., who "projected" the "ghost" 
of himself in this instance. 

"On a certain Sunday evening in November, 1881, 
having been reading of the great power which the 
human will is capable of exercising, I determined with 
the whole force of my being that I would be present in 
spirit in the front bedroom on the second floor of a 
house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in 
which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance, viz., 
Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C. V., aged, respectively, 
twenty-five and eleven years. I was living at this time 
at 23 Kildare Gardens, a distance of about three miles 
from Hogarth Road, and I had not mentioned in any 
way my intention of trying this experiment to either 
of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was 
only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that 
I made up my mind to do so. The time at which I 
determined I would be there was one o'clock in the 
morning, and I also had a strong intention of making 
my presence perceptible. 



Report on the Census of Hallucinations. S. P. R. Proceed- 
ings, Vol. X., p. 270. 



186 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

"On the following- Thursday I went to see the ladies 
in question, and in the course of conversation (with- 
out any allusion to the subject on my part) the elder 
one told me that on the previous Sunday night she 
had been much terrified by perceiving me standing by 
her bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition 
advanced toward her, and awoke her little sister, who 
saw me, also. 

"I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she 
replied most decidedly in the affirmative; and upon 
my inquiring the time of the occurrence, she replied 
about one o'clock in the morning. 

"This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement 
of the event and signed it. 

"This was the first occasion upon which I tried an 
experiment of this kind, and its complete success star- 
tled me very much. 

"Besides exercising my power of volition very 
strongly, I put forth an effort which I cannot find 
words to describe. I was conscious of a mysterious 
influence of some sort permeating in my body, and had 
a distinct impression that I was exercising some force 
with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but which 
I can now, at certain times, set in motion at will." 1 

The account is verified by both the Misses Verity. 

Dr. Funk notes another interesting case, where a 
man's spirit — if we are to believe his account — traveled 
several hundred miles by train, returning to his body 
just in time to prevent his being given up as dead. He 
seemed, however, to be invisible to others thruout this 
strange experience. 

1 Myers : Phantasms of the Living, v. i, pp. 104-9. 
I 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 187 

Is it possible that a human being can, by willing to 
do so, send a ghost of itself (what an East Indian 
adept would call its "astral body") hundreds or thou- 
sands of miles almost instantaneously? Is it possible, 
in the first place, that a man's spirit, accompanied, or 
without this ghostly body, can leave the material body 
and travel at will, seemingly regardless of time or 
space ? It may seem safer to say that, as yet, we don't 
know ; but there are instances which seem to point in 
this direction. 

Apparitions of the Dead 

In seeking the explanation of ghosts, not of the liv- 
ing but of the dead, as of other matters lying entirely 
outside ordinary human experience, our only clue, as 
Myers says, is some attempt at continuity with what 
we already know. Thus we have seen that telepathy, 
and even clairvoyance, are not inconceivable in this 
day of the wireless telephone, the proved existence of 
those mysterious rapid vibrations of the ether of which, 
as yet, we know tantalizingly little except that exist- 
ence, and the, as yet, almost unknown "higher" forces 
of the human mind and body. 

But granting the possibility of clairvoyance, that is, 
granting the projection, for many miles, of a power 
of sight, it is but a step to view as possible the similar 
projection of the apparition of a living person. And 
similarly, as Dr. Hyslop notes, "If thoughts of the liv- 
ing can produce hallucinations at a distance, it is but 
a step to the supposition that the dead, if they actually 
survive death, can produce similar effects. . . J" 1 



a Hyslop : Borderland of Psychical Research, p. 192. 



188 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

"If they survive death," you will notice. But be- 
fore attempted explanation, let us consider a few, a 
few out of a very large number, of typical instances of 
the phenomena itself. 

We have one on the authority of no less a person 
than Lord Brougham, the philosopher and scientist, 
who was traveling in Sweden at the time of the inci- 
dent he describes. 

"We set out for Gothenberg, determined to make 
Norway. About one in the morning, arriving at a de- 
cent inn, we decided to stop for the night. Tired with 
the cold of yesterday, I was glad to take advantage 
of a hot bath before I turned in, and here a most re- 
markable thing happened to me — so remarkable that 
1 must tell the story from the beginning. 

"After I left the high school I went with G., my 
first intimate friend, to attend the classes in the uni- 
versity. There was no divinity class, but we frequently 
in our walks discussed and speculated upon many grave 
subjects — among others, on the immortality of the soul, 
and on a future state. This question, and the possibil- 
ity, I will not say of ghosts walking, but of the dead 
appearing to the living, were subjects of much specu- 
lation; and we actually committed the folly of draw- 
ing up an agreement, written with our own blood, to 
the effect that whichever of us died the first should 
appear to the other, and thus solve the doubts we had 
entertained of the 'life after death.' 

"After we had finished our classes at the college, 
G. went to India, having got an appointment there in 
the civil service. He seldom wrote to me, and after 
the lapse of a few years I had almost forgotten him; 
moreover, his family having little connection with Edin- 




Spirit Photography- 
Alleged photograph of an ancient, taken in Chicago by Mr. Blackwell 
(on the left). This same "spirit" has appeared on his plates in many 
parts of the world. 



ARE THE DEAD AMVE? 189 

burgh, I seldom saw or heard anything of them, so that 
all his schoolboy intimacy had died out, and I had 
nearly forgotten his existence. I had taken, as I have 
said, a warm bath, and while lying in it, and enjoying 
the comfort of the heat after the late freezing I had 
undergone, I turned my head around, looking toward 
the chair on which I had deposited my clothes, as I 
was about to get out of the bath. On the chair sat G., 
looking calmly at me. How I got out of the bath I 
know not, but on recovering my senses I found myself 
sprawling on the floor. The apparition, or whatever 
it was that had taken the likeness of G., had disap- 
peared." 1 

This, it will be noted, rests entirely on Lord Brough- 
am's personal word; but remembering the bias of his 
writings, it seems unlikely that he would fabricate a 
ghostly visit. 

Here is another typical instance of an apparition 
occurring at or soon after the moment of death. 

"A gentleman," says Dr. Hyslop, relating the inci- 
dent, "had a friend whom he calls J. P., that had gone 
out to the Transvaal, in Africa. When they bade 
each other farewell they expected to see each other 
again. But one night the narrator had gone to bed 
about one o'clock. Early in the morning this expe- 
rience took place: 

" 'Standing by my bed, between me and the chest of 
drawers, I saw a figure, which, in spite of the unwonted 
dress — unwonted, at least, to me — and of a full black 
beard, I at once recognized as that of my old brother 
officer. He had on the usual khaki coat worn by the 

Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 48-9. 



190 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

officers on active service in eastern climates. A brown 
leather strap, which might have been the strap of his 
field-service glass, crossed his breast. A brown leather 
girdle, with sword attached on the left side, and revol- 
ver-case on the right, passed around his waist. On 
his head he wore the ordinary white pith helmet of 
service. I noticed all these particulars in the moment 
that I started from sleep, and sat up in bed looking at 
him. His face was pale, but his bright black eyes 
shone as keenly as when, a year and a half before, they 
had looked upon me as he stood with one foot on the 
hansom, bidding me adieu.' 

" 'Fully impressed for the brief moment that we were 

stationed together at C , in Ireland, or somewhere, 

and thinking I was in my barrack-room, I said, "Hello, 
P. ! Am I late for parade ?" P. looked at me steadily 
and replied, "I'm shot." 

" ' "Shot !" I exclaimed. "Good God ! How, and 
where ?" 

" ' "Through the lungs," replied P., and as he spoke 
his right hand moved slowly up to his breast until the 
fingers rested over the right lung. 

" ' "What were you doing ?" I asked. 

" ' "The general sent me forward," he answered, and 
the right hand left the breast, to move slowly to the 
front, pointing over my head to the window, and at 
the same moment the figure melted away. I rubbed 
my eyes, to make sure I was not dreaming, and sprang 
out of bed. It was 4.10 a.m. by the clock on my man- 
telpiece.' 

"That day the gentleman looked for news from the 
war, but found none, and spoke to a friend about his 
experience, and on the next day the news placed his. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 191 

friend, J. P., among the killed in the battle of Lang's 
Neck. The London Gazette shows that the man was 
killed probably between eleven and twelve o'clock on 
January 28. It seems probable that the narrator's time, 
4.10 in the morning, is wrong for his experience, but 
Mr. Gurney thinks that the apparition took place after 
death, or very close to it. . . " 1 

I cannot here relate another interesting case, given 
by Dr. Hyslop on the authority of Mr. Ira Sayles, of 
the U. S. Geological Survey, of an apparition of a 
young man which pointed to a bullet hole over its right 
eye (discovered afterward to be really the cause of his 
death) ; or of the very striking case of the twin brother 
of Mrs. Storie, already mentioned, who was run over 
while asleep on a railroad track. Mrs. Storie's narra- 
tive is given at length in Phantasms of the Living; and 
the way in which she saw the entire tragedy, as it was 
taking place hundreds of miles away from her, makes 
very interesting reading. Neither can I do more than 
mention the gentleman who saw an apparition of his 
brother in a theater in Toronto, while the latter was 
dying in China ; or the interesting case reported by the 
well-known writer and physician, Dr. S. Weir Mitch- 
ell; or of the apparition of Lord L , seen by the 

Duchess of Hamilton. 

The Morton "Haunting" 

Something further, however, must be said regard- 
ing the famous Morton case, partly because it is prob- 
ably the best authenticated instance of "haunting" on 



Quoted in Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, pp. 
245-7- 



192 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

record, partly because it stands as a type of a large 
class. Unlike those previously mentioned, this is an 
instance where the ghost appears some years after the 
death of the person. 

The case was most fully described by a Miss R. C. 
Morton, whose paper, a Record of a Haunted House, 
appears in Volume VIII of the Proceedings. 1 The 
ghost in question was seen independently, however, 
by at least twenty other persons besides herself, six 
of whom made "independent first-hand statements." 
These witnesses were examined by Frederic Myers 
personally, and their testimony was so detailed and 
completely corroborative that, were this an incident in 
ordinary life, the assumption would be considered 
proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. 

The house in which the Mortons resided "was built 
about the year i860; the first occupant was Mr. S., 
an Anglo-Indian, who lived in it for about sixteen 
years. During this time, in the month of August, year 
uncertain, he lost his wife, to whom he was passion- 
ately attached, and to drown his grief took to drink- 
ing. About two years later Mr. S. married again. 
His second wife, a Miss I. H., was in hopes of curing 
him of his intemperate habits, but instead, she also 
took to drinking, and their married life was embittered 
by constant quarrels, frequently resulting in violent 
scenes. . . . She died on September 23, 1878. 

"After Mr. S.'s death the house was bought by Mr. 
L., an elderly gentleman, who died rather suddenly 



^he following quotations regarding the case are from this 
paper. 




Mr. Frank Podmore 



Most scholarly of all the anti-spiritualistic investigators of psychical 
phenomena. His masterly attack, "A History of Modern Spiritualism," 
is the authority. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 193 

within six months of going into it. The house then 
remained empty for some years — probably four. 

"During this time there is no direct evidence of 
haunting, but when inquiry was made later on, much 
hearsay evidence was brought forward. In April, 1882, 
the house was let by the representatives of the late 
Mr. L. to Captain Morton, . . ." 

Miss Morton continues: 

"The family consists of Captain M. himself; his 
wife, who is a great invalid; neither of whom saw 
anything; a married daughter, Mrs. K., then about 
twenty-six, who was only a visitor from time to time, 
sometimes with, but more often without, her husband ; 
four unmarried daughters : myself, then aged nineteen, 
who was the chief percipient, and now give the chief 
account of the apparition ; E. Morton, then aged eight- 
een; L. and M. Morton, then fifteen and thirteen; 
two sons, one of sixteen, who was absent during the 
greater part of the time when the apparition was seen ; 
the other then six years old. 

"My father took the house in March, 1882, none of 
us having then heard of anything unusual about the 
house. We moved in toward the end of April, and it 
was not until the following June that I first saw the 
apparition. 

"I had gone up to my room, but was not yet in bed, 
when I heard some one at the door, and went to it, 
thinking it might be my mother. On opening the door 
I saw no one ; but on going a few steps along the pas- 
sage I saw the figure of a tall lady, dressed in black, 
standing at the head of the stairs. After a few mo- 
ments she descended the stairs, and I followed for a 
short distance, feeling curious what it could be. I 



194. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

had only a small piece of candle, and it suddenly burnt 
itself out; and being unable to see more, I went back 
to my room. 

"The figure was that of a tall lady, dressed in black 
of a soft woolen material, judging from the slight 
sound in moving. The face was hidden in a hand- 
kerchief held in the right hand. This is all I noticed 
then; but on further occasions, when I was able to 
observe her more closely, I saw the upper part of the 
left side of the forehead and a little of the hair above. 
Her left hand was nearly hidden by her sleeve and a 
fold of her dress. As she held it down, a portion of a 
widow's cuff was visible on both wrists, so that the 
whole impression was that of a lady in widow's weeds. 
There was no cap on the head, but a general effect 
of blackness suggested a bonnet, with long veil or 
a hood." 

Somewhat later Miss Morton says, for her narrative 
is altogether too long to quote in full : 

"After the first, I followed the figure several times 
downstairs into the drawing-room, where she remained 
a variable time, generally standing to the right-hand 
side of the bow-window. From the drawing-room she 
went along the passage toward the garden door, where 
she always disappeared. 

"The first time I spoke to her was on January 29, 
1884. I opened the drawing-room door softly and went 
in, standing just by it. She came in past me and 
walked to the sofa and stood still there ; so I went up 
to her and asked her if I could help her. She moved, 
and I thought she was going to speak, but she only 
gave a slight gasp and moved toward the door. Just 
by the door I spoke to her again, but she seemed as 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 195 

if she were quite unable to speak. She walked into 
the hall, and then by the side door she seemed to disap- 
pear as before." 

Miss Morton then proceeds to relate a large num- 
ber of instances when the apparition was seen, by many 
different people, on one occasion by as many as four 
people in one evening. 

The apparition continued to be seen at intervals 
during the next three years. 

"At Mr. Myers' suggestion, I kept a photographic 
camera constantly ready to try to photograph the fig- 
ure, but on the few occasions I was able to do so, I got 
no result ; at night, usually only by candlelight, a long 
exposure would be necessary for so dark a figure, and 
this I could not obtain." 

The narrative thruout is a very remarkable one. 
Miss Morton, as Dr. Funk notes, was a "capital wit- 
ness, not being in the least nervous." Frequently, she 
says, she "tried to communicate with the figure, con- 
stantly speaking to it, and asking it to make signs, if 
not able to speak, but with no result. I also tried 
especially to touch her, but did not succeed. On cor- 
nering her, as I did once or twice, she disappeared." 

Myers says that Miss Morton had "scientific training, 
and was at the time her account was written (April, 
1892) preparing to be a physician." 

Here are the "proofs of immateriality" of the appa- 
rition, with which Miss Morton sums up her account: 

1. "I have several times fastened fine strings across 
the stairs, at various heights, before going to bed, but 
after all others have gone up to their rooms. ... I 
made small pellets of marine glue, into which I in- 
serted the ends of the cord, then stuck one pellet lightly 



196 ARE THE BEAD ALIVE? 

against the wall and the other to the banister, the string 
being thus stretched across the stairs. They were 
knocked down by a very slight touch, and yet would 
not be felt by any one passing up or down the stairs, 
and by candlelight could not be seen from below. They 
were put at various heights from the ground, from six 
inches to the height of the banister, about three feet. 
I have twice at least seen the figure pass through the 
cords, leaving them intact. 

2. "The sudden and complete disappearance of the 
figure while still in view. 

3. "The impossibility of touching the figure. I have 
repeatedly followed it into a corner, when it disap- 
peared, and have tried to suddenly pounce upon it, 
but have never succeeded in touching it or getting my 
hand up to it, the figure eluding my touch. 

4. "It has appeared in a room with the doors shut. 
On the other hand, the figure was not called up by a 
desire to see it, for on every occasion when we had 
made special arrangements to watch for it we never 
saw it. . . ." 

1 We must remember, too, that the figure was seen 
"by about twenty people, many of them not having 
previously heard of the apparition." Tho its identity 
— and this question of identity becomes of importance 
a little later — was never proved, Miss Morton be- 
lieves, for the following reasons, that it was the second 
Mrs. S.: 

"1. The complete history of the house is known, and 
if we are to connect the figure with any of the previous 
occupants, she is the only person who in any way re- 
sembled the figure ; and the figure is undoubtedly con- 
nected with the house, none of the percipients having 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 197 

seen it anywhere else, nor had any other hallucina- 
tion. 

"2. The widow's garb excludes the first Mrs. S. 

"3. Altho none of us had ever seen the second Mrs. 
S., several people who had known her identified her 
from our description. On being shown a photo-album 
containing a number of portraits, I picked out one 
of her sister as being most like that of the figure, and 
was afterward told that the sisters were much alike. 

"4. Her stepdaughter and others told us that she 
especially used the front drawing-room, in which she 
continually appeared, and that her habitual seat was 
on a couch placed in a similar position to ours. . . Z' 1 



1 See the S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 8, pp. 311-32; also, Funk: 
The Widow's Mite, pp. 396-400; Myers: Human Personality, 
v. 2, pp. 389-96. 



"SURVIVAL IS IMPROBABLE" 

Survival is a hypothesis which people who do not stop 
to reflect accept complacently. But the philosopher is a 
little more reserved. 

Life is painful enough not to give us any very brilliant idea 
of what is to follow, and it is with something akin to terror 
that I figure the possibility that I, my ego, my consciousness, 
can have no end, and will live eternally. Who knows, in that 
case, what is reserved for me? We are all, all such deplor- 
able cowards, so ridiculously feeble in the face of the im- 
mensity of the universe, that we have everything to fear from 
the colossal forces, perhaps unjust, perhaps absurd, which will 
have the power, perhaps eternally, to submit us to tortures 
and to misery. 

Happily this survival is improbable. A lamp goes out when 
the oil is finished. The consciousness will become extinguished 
when it lacks carbon and oxygen. Then it will be night, sleep, 
repose; night without dawn, sleep with no awakening, repose 
with no return to activity. 

It is true that there are some who believe they have given 
scientific proofs of survival. But these proofs are very fragile. 
Who knows, nevertheless, but that one day new proofs will be 
discovered? Our ignorance is so profound that everything is 
possible. Metaphysics is making such progress that the proofs, 
either negative or positive, may perhaps be forthcoming. 

In any case, we may be assured of one thing— that this will 
only be demonstrated by the most painstaking and laborious 
scientific research. This, and this only, will shed light on 
the future of our "me," our ego, our being. 

We keep track rather badly of the march of ideas. Every- 
thing around us changes — costumes, machinery, language, even 
— and these changes, which are gradual, pass unperceived. 
Once a progression has been effected it enters so rapidly into 
our manners that we have trouble to realize that it has not 
always existed. Young people to-day do not imagine that 
thirty years ago the telephone, the phonograph, bicycles, auto- 
198 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 199 

mobiles, sleeping-cars, antiseptics, X-rays, and even the theory 
of microbes, did not exist. It appears to-day as though these 
things had always existed, and that one could not live without 
them. Nevertheless, you only need to call up the recollections 
of a man of my generation, and he will tell you that not only 
these things were unknown, but that no one dreamed that they 
would one day exist. 

We change, then, and we change very rapidly, but by little 
transitions, imperceptibly. 

Now in psychical science everything is so profoundly modi- 
fied that to get any idea of this it is necessary to look back 
about thirty years. Thirty years ago neither animal mag- 
netism, nor hypnotism, nor any of the phenomena called occult, 
were accepted. Nor did any one give himself the trouble to 
study them. All such investigations were treated with a smile 
of incredulity and disdain. The most simple thing was to 
deny everything. In the encyclopedia of 1875 the definition 
given for animal magnetism is thus summed up: "Animal 
magnetism does not exist." 

The doctrines of psychical phenomena were flouted equally 
by the sages and the vulgar. It was not even admitted that 
an honest man could occupy himself seriously with such "non- 
sense," to try to discover whether the manifestations were 
true or false. 

This is one of the reasons why I have such a profound 
admiration for that great savant, Sir William Crookes. It is 
not alone that he discovered new metals, invented admirable 
instruments with which to work, by which fertile discoveries 
have been made, and imagined audacious theories the profound 
penetration of which each day confirms. But it is for another 
thing that I admire him most — for his scientific courage! The 
professional courage of the savant is equal any day to that of 
the soldier who rushes with fixed bayonet into the thick of 
battle. Sir William Crookes was one of the first of the scien- 
tific men to dare to publish his investigations in spiritualistic 
phenomena. And this opened up the road to hundreds more 
timid. 

To-day young students talk, as a matter of course, of animal 
magnetism, hypnotic suggestion, and other phenomena of a 



200 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

similar order. They cannot imagine the discredit such ideas 
brought down upon the head of the young aspirant of three 
decades ago. I remember yet when I told my father, 
by whose counsel and high intelligence I was always guided, 
I wanted to publish my investigations on somnambulism. 
He cried: "But, my boy, do you want to ruin your career?" 

Happily, one is never quite lost when one defends what 
one believes to be true. So I am convinced that in the near 
future, after new facts have been demonstrated, after able 
experimenters, aided by powerful mediums, shall have thrown 
new light on certain phenomena which are as yet rather shad- 
owy, we shall be brought to modify profoundly all of our 
conceptions on metaphysics and metaphysical manifestations. 
We will have other hypotheses than that of angels and spirits, 
or of human emanations, for the explanation of the tipping of 
tables and of materialized bodies. There is a force which 
exists, an unknown force, as truly as the law of natural 
selection existed long before Darwin so named it, and as 
the theory of electricity was true long before Ampere, Faraday 
or Franklin made their discoveries in regard to it. 

Up to the present time the phenomena which we have been 
able to examine have been only fragmentary. The tie which 
binds them escapes us. But it will not always be so. The day 
will come when an explanation will be given, an explanation 
quite different to all those which our ignorance has constructed. 
The discovery is perhaps quite simple. Let us, then, have 
confidence in a science which will open up to us a limitless 
horizon. 

Do we not know already that science has diminished by 
one-half the miseries and ills of humanity, miseries into 
which we have fallen through ignorance? Well, what medical 
and physical science has done for the human body may we not 
hope metaphysical science in turn may accomplish for the 
spiritual self when the question of survival will become no 
longer a theory, a problem, but an established fact? 

Then let us work, study, employ sure methods, and not 
abandon ourselves to hollow phrases and uncertain hopes. 
Science alone, and a severe science, will have the right to 
solve the Grand Problem. —Charles Richet. 



CHAPTER IX 

WHAT ARE GHOSTS?— "MATERIALIZA- 
TIONS" 

It is, of course, useless to give stories of ghostly 
appearances with any great hope that the reality of 
the apparitions will be accepted by the reader, no mat- 
ter how circumstantial the accounts may be, unless 
we can at least suggest what the "ghost" may be, and 
what laws govern its appearances. 

Now, however easy it may be to "tell ghost stories" 
when we attempt in simple language to give any ade- 
quate scientific explanation of the phenomena we very 
quickly find ourselves in deep water. 

"Whatever else, indeed, a ghost may be," says My- 
ers, "it is probably one of the most complex phenomena 
in nature. It is a function of two unknown variables 
— the incarnate spirit's sensitivity and the discarnate 
spirit's capacity of self-manifestation. . . J' 1 

First, in the light of the researches of the Society 
for Psychical Research, what is a ghost? 

"The popular view regards a ghost as a deceased 
person permitted by Providence to hold communion 
with survivors. And this short definition contains, I 
think," says Myers, "at least three unwarrantable as- 
sumptions. 



'Myers: Human Personality, p. 229. 
201 



202 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

"In the first place, such words as permission and 
Providence are simply neither more nor less appli- 
cable to this phenomenon than to any other. We con- 
ceive that all phenomena alike take place in accordance 
with the laws of the universe, and consequently by 
permission of the Supreme Power in the universe. Un- 
doubtedly, the phenomena with which we are dealing 
are in this sense permitted to occur. . . . But if we 
attempt to find in these phenomena any poetical jus- 
tice, or manifest adaptation to human cravings, we shall 
be just as much disappointed as if we endeavored to 
find a similar satisfaction in the ordinary course of 
terrene history. 

"In the second place, we have no warrant for the 
assumption that the phantom seen, even though it be 
somehow caused by a deceased person, is the deceased 
person, in any ordinary sense of the word. Instead 
of appealing to the crude analogy of the living friend, 
who, when he has walked into the room, is in the room, 
we shall find for the ghost a much closer parallel in 
those hallucinatory figures or phantasms which living 
persons can sometimes project at a distance. 

"But experience shows that . . . there is a tendency, 
so to say, to anthropomorphose the apparition ; to sup- 
pose that, as the deceased person is not provably any- 
where else, he is probably here ; and that the apparition 
is bound to behave accordingly. All such assumptions 
must be dismissed, and the phantom must be taken 
on its merits, as indicating merely a connection with 
the deceased." 1 . . . "And in the third place, just as we 
must cease to say that the phantom is the deceased, so 



^he italics are mine. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 203 

also must we cease to ascribe to the phantom the mo- 
tives by which we imagine that the deceased might be 
swayed. We must, therefore, exclude from our defini- 
tion of a ghost any words which assume its intention 
to communicate with the living. It may bear such a 
relation to the deceased that it can reflect or repre- 
sent his presumed wish to communicate, or it may not. 
If, for instance, its relation to his post-mortem life be 
like the relation of my dreams to my earthly life, it 
may represent little that is truly his, save such vague 
memories and instincts as give a dim individuality to 
each man's trivial dreams." 1 

No one could state more clearly than does Myers 
the things which a "ghost" is generally suposed to be, 
but which science says it is not. Now, what is it? 

"Let us attempt, then," continues Mr. Myers, "a 
truer definition. Instead of describing a ghost as a 
dead person permitted to communicate with the living, 
let us define it as a manifestation of persistent personal 
energy, or as an indication that some kind of force is 
being exercised. after death which is in some way con- 
nected with a person previously known on earth. . . ." 2 

This is far from being as definite as the sensationalist 
might desire ; but the very carefulness of its generality 
renders it more capable of scientific acceptation and 
further investigation. 

Furthermore, as Myers goes on to state, the "spirit" 
of the person, so far from causing the "ghost" of him- 
self to be seen, may not even know that his "ghost" 
exists, or is being seen. Nay, more than that, there 



^yers : Human Personality, Vol. II., p. 3. *Ibid., p. 4. 



204) ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

is considerable evidence in support of an even more 
striking thesis, namely, that a ghost may be simply an 
impression of some kind on the ether or atmosphere 
not requiring any action on the part of the deceased 
person, voluntary or involuntary ! It "may be (in oth- 
er words) some residue of the force or energy which 
he generated while yet alive," which remains hanging 
around the place where he was accustomed to be. 

Edmund Gurney suggests this theory of veridical 
after-images, as he calls them, in his comment upon 
the "recurring figure of an old woman — seen on the 
bed where she was murdered," stating that she may be 
only "the survival of a mere image, impressed, we can- 
not guess how, or we cannot guess what, and percep- 
tible at times to those endowed with some cognate form 
of sensitiveness." 1 

Now, this latter theory, if correct, means, of course, 
that we may have true "ghosts," that is, sensible appa- 
ritions of persons that have died, without this proving 
that those persons have any continued existence after 
death at all. They may have died, and died utterly 
"for good and all," and still leave behind these sort 
of lifeless, unsubstantial "husks" of themselves to float 
around their habitual haunts for weeks or years after- 
ward. 

There are, indeed, several facts that seem to support 
the theory that this may be all that simple "haunting" 
is. This, for instance, accounts for the clothes of the 
ghost, a difficulty which in other cases has been often 
urged, "and never," says Mr. Myers, "satisfactorily 
answered." It is supported by the fact that these 



*S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 4, p. 417. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 205 

"haunts" appear in the places frequented by the de- 
ceased, and never elsewhere ; and are frequently "laid," 
according to the popular idea, when repairs or altera- 
tions are made of the place where they occur. Such 
an apparition as Miss Morton's may be accounted for 
wholly by this hypothesis. 

But tho I believe this theory possible, and, indeed, 
probable in some cases, it is very difficult to explain 
all "ghosts" in this way. There are many cases, and 
several reasons, that point to the probability of the 
continued existence after death of the person whose 
ghost appears. 

Ghosts occasionally speak (we are considering now 
only of those certified by the records of the Society for 
Psychical Research). They appear in places where 
they, in their human existence, never were, and to 
persons whom they never knew. And there is incon- 
testable evidence that the thought and emotion of liv- 
ing persons has affected the movements or other ac- 
tions of the apparition ; a thing that could not happen 
were the "ghost" merely a lifeless, unsubstantial husk. 

Not All "Ghosts" Are Subjective 

Before closing we must face courageously the diffi- 
culty — and this is the first and strongest argument 
brought up by the anti-spiritualist — that these appari- 
tions, tho possibly believed genuine by those who see 
them, are entirely subjective; that is, they are hallu- 
cinations, that exist only in the mind of the person 
seeing them. 

"There remain three, and I think only three, condi- 
tions," says Mr. Edmund Gurney, "which might es- 
tablish a presumption that an apparition or other imme- 



206 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

diate manifestation of a dead person is something more 
than a mere subjective hallucination of the percipient's 
senses. Either (i) more persons than one might be 
independently affected by the phenomenon; or (2) the 
phantasm might convey information, afterward dis- 
covered to be true, of something which the percipient 
had never known; or (3) the appearance might be 
that of a person whom the percipient himself had never 
seen, and of whose aspect he was ignorant, and yet 
his description of it might be sufficiently definite for 
identification. . . ." x 

For the encouragement of the would-be believer in 
spiritualistic phenomena, the materialist must admit 
that every one of these conditions has been met over 
and over again. Miss Morton's case is one among 
many where a "ghost" has been seen simultaneously by 
several observers. (And the anti-spiritualist's answer 
to this — namely, that one of these persons has an hal- 
lucination, and the others present telepathically receive 
from him, and have the same hallucination, simulta- 
neously — does, I confess, seem to me a trifle far- 
fetched.) The ghost, in very many cases, gives infor- 
mation unknown to the percipients. For instance, the 
officer in the Transvaal, and the young man mentioned 
by Dr. Sayles, gave information about their own deaths 
absolutely unknown to those who saw their appari- 
tions. 

Miss Morton's case, also, is an example of the third 
requirement, the identification of the ghost of a stran- 
ger; tho, in fairness to the spiritualist, it should be 
added that there are many much stranger instances. 



'Quoted in Hyslop : Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 240. 



iARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 207 

To overturn the hallucination theory we have, also, 
however, two strong positive arguments. 

The first was noted in our account of the Census of 
Hallucinations, namely, that seemingly conclusive body 
of proof connecting ghosts directly with the decease of 
their owner. Mr. Gurney puts the case very neatly : I 

"According to the doctrines of probabilities, an hal- 
lucination representing a known person would not, by 
chance, present a definite time relation to a special cog- 
nate event — viz., the death of that person — in more than 
a certain percentage of the whole number of similar 
hallucinations that occur; and if that percentage is 
decidedly exceeded, there is reason to surmise that, 
some other cause than chance — in other words, some, 
objective origin for the phantasm — is present." 1 

Do Animals See Apparitions? 

But there is another very striking collection of facts 
pointing to the objective reality of apparitions, facts 
which have not, it seems to me, been treated with the 
importance they deserve. I speak of the effect which 
these apparitions have had upon animals. People, you 
may argue, have hallucinations ; do animals ? And do 
they also "receive them telepathically" and simultane- 
ously from humans? 

Alfred Russell Wallace has collected a number of 
these instances. . . . 

"I have already mentioned the case of the female 
figure in white, seen by three persons, floating over a 
hedge ten feet above the ground, when the horse they 
were driving 'suddenly stopped and shook with fright.' 
In the remarks upon this case in Phantasms of the Liv- 

] See the S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. V., pp. 403-408. 



208 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

ing, no reference is made to this fact, yet it is surely 
the crucial one, since we can hardly suppose that a 
wholly subjective apparition, seen by human beings, 
would also be seen by a horse. During the tremen- 
dous knocking recorded by Mr. Garling ... it is stat- 
ed that there was a large dog in a kennel near the front 
entrance, especially to warn off intruders, and a little 
terrier inside that barked at everybody ; yet, when the 
noise occurred that awakened the servants, sixty feet 
away, 'the dogs gave no tongue whatever ; the terrier, 
contrary to its nature, slunk shivering under the sofa, 
and would not stop even at the door, and nothing could 
induce him to go into the darkness.' 

"In the remarkable account of a haunted house dur- 
ing an occupation of twelve months by a well-known 
English church dignitary, the very different behavior 
of dogs in the presence of real and phantasmal dis- 
turbances is pointed out. When an attempt was made 
to rob the vicarage, the dogs gave prompt alarm, and 
the clergyman was aroused by their fierce barking. 
During the mysterious noises, however, tho these were 
much louder and more disturbing, they never barked 
at all, but were always 'found cowering in a state of 
pitiable terror.' They are said to have been more . . . 
perturbed than any other members of the establish- 
ment, and 'if not shut up below, would make their way 
to our bedroom door and lie there, crouching and 
whining, as long as we would allow them.' 1 

"In the account of haunting in a house at Ham- 
mersmith, near London, which went on for five years, 
where steps and noises were heard, and a phantom 



'S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. VI., p. 151. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 209 

woman seen, 'the dog whined incessantly' during the 
disturbances, and 'the dog was evidently still afraid 
of the room when the morning came. I called to him 
to go into it with me, and he crouched down, with his 
tail between his legs, and seemed to fear entering it.' 1 

"On the occasion of a 'wailing cry,' heard before a 
death in a rectory in Staffordshire, a house standing 
quite alone in open country, 'we found a favorite bull- 
dog, a very courageous animal, trembling with terror, 
with his nose thrust into some billets of firewood which 
were kept under the stairs.' On another occasion, 'an 
awful howling, followed by shriek upon shriek,' with 
a sound like that caused by a strong wind, was heard, 
altho everything out of doors was quite still, and it is 
stated, 'We had three dogs sleeping in my sisters' and 
my bedrooms, and they were all cowering down with 
affright, their bristles standing straight up; one — a 
bulldog — was under the bed, and refused to come out, 
and when removed was found to be trembling all over.' 
The remark of Mrs. Sidgwick on these and other cases 
of warning sounds is, that 'if not real, natural sounds, 
they must have been collective hallucinations.' But it 
has not been shown that 'real, natural sounds' ever pro- 
duce such effects upon dogs, and there is no suggestion 
that 'collective hallucination' can be telepathically trans- 
ferred to these animals. In one case, however, it is 
suggested that the dog might have 'been suddenly taken 
ill.' (!)» 

"In the remarkable account by General Barter, C.B., 
of a phantasmal pony and rider, with two native 



!S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. VIIL, p. 116. 
'Ibid., Vol. XIII., pp. 307-08. 



210 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

grooms, seen in India, two dogs, which immediately 
before were hunting about in the brushwood jungle 
which covered the hill, came and crouched by the gen- 
eral's side, giving low, frightened whimpers ; and when 
he pursued the phantasm the dogs returned home, tho 
on all other occasions they were his most faithful com- 
panions. . . . x 

"During the disturbances at the Cemetery of Ahrens- 
burg, in the island of Oesel, where coffins were over- 
turned in locked vaults, and the case was investigated 
by an official commission, the horses of country peo- 
ple visiting the cemetery were often so alarmed and 
excited that they became covered with sweat and foam. 
Sometimes they threw themselves on the ground, where 
they struggled in apparent agony, and notwithstanding 
the immediate resort to remedial measures, several died 
within a day or two. In this case, as in many others, 
altho the commission made a most rigid investigation, 
and applied the strictest tests, no natural cause for the 
disturbances was ever discovered." 2 

"In the wonderful case of haunting in Pennsylvania, 
given by Mr. Hodgson in The Arena 3 . . . when the 
apparition of the white lady appeared to the inform- 
ant's brother, we find it stated: 'The third night he 
saw the dog crouch and stare, and then act as if driven 
around the room. Brother saw nothing, but heard a 
sort of rustle, and the poor dog howled and tried to 
hide, and never again would the dog go to that room.' " 

Now, these instances, by no means rare, are, as 
Alfred Russell Wallace himself said . . . ''certainly re- 

1 S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. XIV, pp. 469-70. 
2 R. D. Owen : Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, 
pp. 186-92. a Arena for September, 1890, p. 419. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 211 

markable, and worthy of deep consideration. The facts 
are such, as on the theories of telepathy and hallucina- 
tion ought not to happen, and they are especially trust- 
worthy facts, because they are, almost invariably, intro- 
duced into the narrative as if unexpected; while that 
they were noticed, shows that the observers were in 
no degree panic-struck with terror. They show unmis- 
takably that large numbers of phantasms . . . are ob- 
jective realities ; while the terror displayed by the ani- 
mals that perceive them, and their behavior, so unlike 
that in the presence of natural sights and sounds, no 
less clearly proves that, tho objective, the phenomena 
are not normal, and are not to be explained as in any 
way due to trick or to misinterpreted natural sounds." 1 

Whether ghosts exist at all or not, it is now for the 
reader to judge. Whether they may always exist with- 
out implying necessarily a future life for the person 
whom they appear to represent, this also he must de- 
cide. He may now either answer for himself the ques- 
tion : Do ghosts help to prove the existence of a future 
life? Or, like Dr. Hyslop, in a caution uttered a few 
years ago, he may for a while defer judgment. . . . 

"Nor would I encourage confidence," says the latter, 
"in the spiritistic explanation of phantasms of the 
dead, until we have gathered much more material, and 
perhaps material with better evidence of its supernor- 
mal character. Apparitions are not likely to be suffi- 
cient proof of survival after death for the scientific 
man until better records are made of the facts. . . ." 2 

Apparitions, however, by no means give the final an- 
swer to the question — are the dead alive ? Ghosts may, 

1 Wallace : Miracles and Modem Spiritualism, pp. 243-4. 
2 Hyslop : Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 271. 



212 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

or may not, exist — and not decisively effect the solution 
of the main problem. 

"Materializations ° 

No phenomena in spiritualism would be more as- 
tounding and inexplicable, if genuine, than those of 
"materialization." Yet that is the next logical step 
in the ascending scale which we have been following. 
If objective apparitions of the dead may appear per- 
ceptible to the senses of sight and hearing, why not 
veritable "materializations," perceptible to all the 
senses, including that of touch ? If we have come so 
far, we must, logically, at least listen to the evidence 
for this even more remarkable phenomenon, or else 
retrace our steps and at some past crossing of the ways 
take another path. 

"Needless to say, if this fact of materialization and 
dematerialization be a fact, it is one of the most ex- 
traordinary, as well as one of the most important, that 
science has ever discovered, and one of the most diffi- 
cult of solution that the man of science will ever be 
called upon to explain or solve." 1 I do not recall at this 
moment — except a hint given by Mr. Myers — any sug- 
gested explanation ; and indeed the cases which lay 
strong claim to authenticity are so rare as to render 
our data extremely deficient. 

Of fraudulent "materialization" there is, of course, 
an endless amount, fraud so puerile and transparent 
that one wonders how any sane man or woman could 
be for a moment deceived. Wire busts, inflated rub- 
ber, cork soles, gauze dresses, phosphorescent clothing, 
false hair, jointed dummies and sticks — these are a few 



Harrington : Physical Phenomena 'of Spiritualism, p. 230. 




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ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 213 

of the many "properties" of the professional "material- 
izing medium." The amazing thing is that with such 
simple apparatus he can do so much, even with the 
aid of a superabundant nerve, the darkness of the 
seance-room, and the half-hysterical credulity of his 
patrons. It goes without saying, therefore, that the 
usual "materialization," in the dark, under circum- 
stances prohibitive of anything like adequate observa- 
tion, should not, and does not, receive the slightest 
consideration from the scientist. 

In our resume of the more important phenomena 
observed with the medium, Eusapia Paladino, we re- 
counted a large number of instances of partial mate- 
rialization, instances which in their number and vari- 
ety, the careful stringency of the tests imposed and the 
high standing of the observers reporting, form quite 
our most important and convincing body of evidence 
in support of the phenomena. 

But there are not a few other instances in the history 
of spiritualism that cannot be dismissed so easily. 
Some of the more striking observed by Sir W. Crookes 
have already been quoted. 1 Occult Science in India 
contains a number of very remarkable examples. A 
few years ago, Professor Richet detailed at some length 
in the Annals of Psychic Science a very striking exam- 
ple of materialization occurring under careful test con- 
ditions. Dr. Stanhope Templeman Speer relates a 
case 2 in which the Rev. W. Stainton Moses was the 
medium, in which a very life-like hand materialized 
out of the center of a floating globe of light. 

1 See his Notes. 

J S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 9, pp. 245-53. 



214 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

We have already spoken of the Fox sisters, of their 
confession of fraud, and of their later retraction of 
this confession. Lest the reader gain an erroneous idea 
of the importance of the phenomena observed with 
them, it should be stated that in the mature life of the 
sisters these were not confined to rappings, but were 
often very remarkable materializations, seemingly in- 
explicable by any hypothesis of fraud. 

"Miss Fox's powers were most remarkably shown 
in the seances at Mr. Livermore's, a well-known New 
York banker, and an entire sceptic before commencing 
these experiments. These sittings were more than three 
hundred in number, extending over five years ... in 
four different houses . . . and under tests of the most 
rigid description. The chief phenomenon was the ap- 
pearance of a tangible, visible, and audible figure of 
Mr. Livermore's deceased wife . . . often most dis- 
tinct, and absolutely life-like. It moved various objects 
about the room. It wrote messages on cards. It was 
sometimes formed out of a luminous cloud, and again 
vanished before the eyes of the witnesses. It allowed 
a portion of its dress to be cut off, which, tho at first 
of strong and apparently material gauzy texture, yet 
in a short time melted away and became invisible. 
Flowers which melted away were also given. . . ."* 

Speaking of "materialized" dresses, I might speak 
of an incident in the "Katie King" seances, described 
more fully a little later. On the evening on which 
Katie King terminated her three years' materialized 
"life" on earth, she took leave of her medium, Miss 
Cook, and wrote "letters to some of her friends, signing 
them 'Annie Owen Morgan,' saying that was her true 
1 Wallace : Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, pp. 163-4. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 215 

name during her life on earth. She also wrote a letter 
. . . her medium, and chose for her a rosebud as a 
good-by gift. Katie then took the scissors, cut off a 
lock of her hair, and gave some of it to all of us. She 
then took Mr. Crookes' hand and made the tour of 
the room, pressing the hand of each of us in turn. She 
then sat down again, and cut off several pieces of her 
robe and of her veil, for remembrances. Seeing such 
holes in her robe (she being seated all this while be- 
tween Mr. Crookes and Mr. Tapp), some one asked 
her if she could repair the damage, as she had done on 
previous occasions. She then held the cut part of the 
robe in the light, gave one rap upon it, and instantly 
that part was whole and unblemished as before. Those 
near her touched and examined the stuff, with her per- 
mission. They affirmed that there was neither hole 
nor seam, nor anything added at the very place where, 
an instant before, they had seen holes several inches 
in diameter." 1 

The strongest evidence, however, that we have is 
that of the cases observed by Sir W. Crookes with the 
medium, D. D. Home. Some of these were quoted 
in the opening article of the series ; but others deserve 
further consideration here. 

As an introduction to the materialization proper, Sir 
W. Crookes speaks of "luminous appearances" mani- 
festing themselves "under strictly test conditions." 
"These, being rather faint, generally require the room 
to be darkened. I need scarcely remind my readers 
again that, under these circumstances, I have taken 
proper precautions to avoid being imposed upon by 



x The Spiritualist for May 27, 1874. 



216 ARE THE; DEAD ALIVE? 

phosphorized oil or other means. Moreover, many 
of these lights are such as I have tried to imitate arti- 
ficially, but cannot." 1 

"Under the strictest test conditions, I have seen a 
solid, self-luminous body, the size, and nearly the shape, 
of a turkey's egg, float noiselessly about the room, at 
one time higher than any one present could reach, 
standing on tiptoe, and then gently descend to the 
floor. It was visible for more than ten minutes, and 
before it faded away it struck the table three times, 
with a sound like that of a hard, solid body. During 
this time the medium was lying back, apparently in- 
sensible, in an easy-chair. . . . Under the strictest test 
conditions, I have, more than once, had a solid, self- 
luminous, crystalline body placed in my hand by a 
hand which did not belong to any person in the room." 2 

Of the "appearance of hands" we have already noted 
several instances. Here are others noted in the same 
report: "On another occasion a small hand and arm, 
like a baby's, appeared, playing about a lady who was 
sitting next to me. It then passed to me, and patted 
my arm and pulled my coat several times." 3 

"A hand has repeatedly been seen by myself and 
others, playing the keys of an accordion, both of the 
medium's hands being visible at the same time, and 
sometimes being held by those near him." 

"The hands and fingers do not always appear to me 
to be solid and life-like. Sometimes, indeed, they pre- 
sent more the appearance of a nebulous cloud, partly 
condensed into the form of a hand." It may be noted 



'Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Set., Jan., 1874, p. 87. 
'Ibid. 'Ibid., p. 88. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 217 

that this accordion was in a wire cage, the wires being 
charged electrically and connected with a galvanome- 
ter as an additional safeguard. 

On still another occasion "a luminous hand came 
down from the upper part of the room, and after hov- 
ering near me for a few seconds, took the pencil from 
my hand, rapidly wrote on a sheet of paper, threw 
the pencil down, and then rose up over our heads, 
gradually fading into darkness." 1 

The materialization of something more than hands, 
that is, of "phantom forms and faces," Sir W. Crookes 
says, "are the rarest of the phenomena I have witnessed. 
The conditions requisite for their appearance appear 
to be so delicate, and such trifles interfere with their 
production, that only on very few occasions have I wit- 
nessed them under satisfactory test conditions. . . ." 

In this connection he cites but two cases, of which I 
will quote only the second. 

"As in the former case, Mr. Home was the medium. 
A phantom form came from a corner of the room, took 
an accordion in its hand, and then glided about the 
room playing the instrument. The form was visible to 
all present for many minutes, Mr. Home also being 
seen at the same time. Coming rather close to a lady 
who was sitting apart from the rest of the company, 
she gave a slight cry, upon which it vanished." 2 

The Famous "Katie King" Materialization 

The record of the final and most striking case of all 
that Sir W. Crookes observed, namely, that of the ma- 

1 Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Set., Jan., 1874, p. 89. 
Hbid., p. 190. 



218 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

terialized spirit of "Katie King," already mentioned, is 
too long to quote in its entirety here. Those interested 
will find it reprinted at length in Dr. Funk's Widow's 
Mite. 

Very briefly, what Sir W. Crookes would have us 
believe is this : that a Miss Cook, a medium, material- 
ized at will for several years a spirit from the other 
world, called "Katie," unknown to him or any one else 
who saw and conversed with her ; that "Katie" acted 
as would any human being in the flesh ; was a beautiful 
young woman, with a most charming personality, but 
who came and vanished at intervals, and finally for- 
ever, spontaneously. However much we may dislike 
to accept such a wholesale "violation ( ?) of the laws 
of nature," the advocate of the hypothesis of fraud in 
this case must take into account these facts : 

i. "Katie" was seen by and conversed with a large 
number of people, including the children of the Crookes 
family, and this not once or twice, but over a period 
of nearly three years. 

2. To prevent trickery, the more significant seances 
were held in Sir W.'s own library, the materializations 
taking place in a "cabinet" which he had improvised 
himself. 

3. Miss Cook, the medium, was a schoolgirl of fif- 
teen. "To imagine," says Sir W., that she "should 
be able to conceive and then successfully carry out for 
three years so gigantic an imposture as this, and in 
that time should submit to any test which might be 
imposed upon her, should bear the strictest scrutiny, 
should be willing to be searched at any time, either 
before or after a seance, and should meet with even 
better success in my own house than at that of her 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 219 

parents, knowing that she visited me with the express 
object of submitting to strict scientific tests — to im- 
agine, I say, the Katie King of the last three years to 
be the result of imposture does more violence to one's 
reason and common sense than to believe her to be what 
she herself affirms." 

4. "Katie" was really "material," spoke and walked ; 
her heart heat; her lungs "were found to be sounder 
than her medium's"; she suffered Sir W. to embrace 
her, as proof of her materiality ; she allowed her pic- 
ture to be taken; she was a favorite with, and told 
stories to and played with the Crookes children ; and 
yet, added to her "humanness" (however much we may 
say that this latter was mere imagination), she ap- 
peared to all observers to have a beauty and charm that 
was hardly earthly ; and she frequently, in a second or 
two, vanished into thin air. 

5. "Katie" — and this is the favorite "explanation" — 
was not the medium herself, disguised. If it be not 
sufficient proof that their hair was not the same in 
color, that "Katie" was six inches taller than Miss 
Cook, that Miss Cook's skin bore marks that Katie's 
lacked, this fact must seem conclusive: that the two 
were seen and felt side by side, at one and the same 
time, Miss Cook in the deep trance that accompanied 
Katie's materialization, Katie standing by Sir W. . . . 
"Three separate times," says he, "did I carefully ex- 
amine Miss Cook, crouching before me, to be sure 
that the hand I held was that of a living woman, and 
three separate times did I turn the lamp to Katie, and 
examine her with steadfast scrutiny, until I had no 
doubt whatever of her objective reality. At last Miss 
Cook moved slightly, and Katie instantly motioned me 



220 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

to go away. I went to another part of the cabinet, 
and then ceased to see Katie, but did not leave the 
room till Miss Cook woke up and two of the visitors 
came in with a light." 

6. No person resembling Katie was ever seen any- 
where else but in the seance-room, and during such 
time as Miss Cook was entranced. 

This remarkable case is well worthy of careful read- 
ing. Strongly substantiated as it appears to be, and oc- 
curring under such seemingly good test conditions, it is, 
nevertheless, alone insufficient to warrant our belief in 
such revolutionary phenomena. Yet, remembering the 
rank of Sir William Crookes as a scientist, and the 
wealth of evidence attesting to the mysterious Katie, 
we may well consider it, if not a link in the chain of 
scientific evidence for a future life, at least the rough 
iron out of which a strengthening corroborative chain 
may be some day forged. 



"THE DEAD HAVE NEVER REALLY DIED" 

During the last sixty years evidence has been accumulating 
in every part of the world which affords demonstration that 
the so-called dead have never really died at all, but have 
passed into a new and higher stage of existence. Many of 
these are able to communicate with us and most of them as- 
sure us that when they wake from the sleep we call death 
they find themselves much more alive than ever they were 
before. And this is only what we may expect; for we all feel 
that our mental faculties are to some extent clogged and stifled 
by the garment of flesh, and that only when in the most per- 
fect health do our higher faculties attain their fullest ex- 
pression. 

This rapid entrance on a state of spiritual well-being and 
happiness seems to be very general among those who have 
led ordinarily good and natural lives, but is by no means uni- 
versal. Those who have led selfish or sensual lives, or have 
given way to evil passions of any kind, have a different awak- 
ening, into a world of darkness or gloom, often of solitude for 
a longer or shorter period and infinitely varied in the sur- 
roundings according to their previous lives. But whatever 
germs of good are in them are ultimately developed through 
the kind ministrations of spirit-helpers, and thenceforth 
progress towa-rds a higher and happier state depends mainly 
on themselves. 

We have all kinds of phenomena which are inexplicable even 
to the scientific mind, except on a spiritualistic hypothesis. 
We have the alteration of the weight of bodies, which has 
often been tested. We have the phenomena of articles of vari- 
ous kinds being moved without human agency, such as chairs, 
tables and musical instruments. More curious is the convey- 
ing of bodies to a distance; flowers and fruits are the most 
common of these, but also other bodies, such as letters and 
various small objects, have been conveyed long distances — 
sometimes several miles. 

221 



222 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Further, we have that curious phenomena which is recorded 
more or less throughout history, the raising or levitation of 
human bodies into the air and sometimes conveying them a 
considerable distance. More remarkable by far than these, be- 
cause beyond all human power to produce, is the tying of 
knots on endless cords, the taking of coins out of sealed boxes, 
and the passage of solid rings over the body far too large for 
them to pass over by any natural means. All these things 
have happened in the presence of careful scientists and their 
assistants; I have frequently myself seen, in good light, sticks 
and handkerchiefs pass through a curtain. 

We have chemical phenomena. Chief among these is that 
of protection from the effects of fire. Mr. D. D. Home, de- 
ceased now some years, and perhaps the most remarkable 
medium that ever lived, used to take from a grate a brilliant, 
red-hot mass of coals, carry them about the room in his hands, 
and by his peculiar power indicate certain persons who were 
able to have them placed in their hands, and placing them 
there they would experience no unpleasant results. 

********* 

In view of the numerous men who have investigated this 
matter and given their decision, we may entirely throw aside 
the idea that imposture, only in slight measure, has produced 
these phenomena. 

Scientific men almost invariably assume that in this inquiry 
they should be permitted at the very outset to impose condi- 
tions, and if under such conditions nothing happens, they con- 
sider it a proof of imposture or delusion. But they well know 
that in other branches of research, nature, not they, determines 
the essential conditions without a compliance with which no 
experiment will succeed. 

The underlying laws of the testimony of evidence are sim- 
ple. If a man of good judgment, in full possession of his 
senses and a reputation for honesty, tells us of a certain fact 
which he witnessed, we are inclined, in the absence of con- 
tradictory evidence, to believe the fact that he states. If ten 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 223 

men, similarly endowed, say they witnessed the same thing, 
we feel reasonably certain; whereas the concurrent independ- 
ent testimony of a thousand sincere, capable men may be said 
to make assertion a certainty. 

As I have already said, in my introduction to "Miracles and 
Modern Spiritualism," outside of modern spiritualism I know 
nothing in recognized science to support the belief in immor- 
tality. Up to the time when I first became acquainted with 
the facts of spiritualism I was a confirmed philosophical skep- 
tic. My curiosity was at first excited by some slight but in- 
explicable phenomena occurring in a friend's family, and my 
desire for knowledge and love of truth forced me to continue 
the inquiry. The facts compelled me to accept them as such 
long before I could accept the spiritual explanation of them; 
there was at that time no place in my fabric of thought into 
which it could be fitted. By slow degrees a place was made; 
but it was made, not by any preconceived or theoretical opin- 
ions, but by the continuous action of fact after fact which 
could not be got rid of in any other way than by accepting 
the explanation of them which spiritualism presents. 

—Alfred Russell Wallace. 



CHAPTER X 
TELEPATHY 

At the very beginning of the discussion of telepathy 
I am going to make a bold, and what may seem an 
unwarranted, statement — Telepathy is now an estab- 
lished scientific fact. It is quite true that concerning 
the laws that govern it, we know little, but it is equally 
true that we have, literally, thousands of well-authen- 
ticated instances attesting the truth of its existence. 

Sir Oliver Lodge, the noted scientist, says: "What 
we [the Society for Psychical Research] can challenge 
the judgment of the world upon is telepathy. Here 
is the beginning of a wider conception of science. 
Directly men see and admit, as they must do from 
the overwhelming evidence, that it is possible to trans- 
mit ideas direct from brain to brain without the inter- 
mediaries of speech and hearing, they are looking into 
and gaining admission to new fields of exploration." 1 
And Dr. Hyslop, the cautious, here none the less posi- 
tively asserts : "In some way, the thoughts of one per- 
son make themselves known to the mind of another. 
The fact is very rare, and is much more rare than 
the general public supposes. But it occurs often enough 
for us to suppose that extra-organic stimuli, of the 

1 Pall Mall Magazine, January, 1904. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 225 

nature of mental states, can produce effects on the 
minds of others." 1 

Dr. Minot J. Savage finds an analogy in the purely 
physical world. "We know that when two musical 
instruments are placed at a certain distance apart," 
he says, "and keyed so as precisely to correspond with 
each other, one will sometimes respond when the other 
is touched. It is possible that there may be such a 
thing as minds of brain molecules keyed to each other 
so that, when some great sorrow, or anticipated evil, 
or stress, touches one of them, there is response in the 
other, no matter how great the distance that may sepa- 
rate them." 2 

Frederic Myers, speaking of "ecstasy," meaning by 
that the ability of the spirit, under certain conditions, 
to leave the body and transcend time and space, says : 
"It is hardly a paradox to say that the evidence for 
ecstasy is stronger than the evidence for any other 
religious belief. . . . [One reason being that it is a] 
fact that it is common to all religions. I doubt whether 
there is any phenomenon, except ecstasy, of which this 
can be said. From the medicine-man of the lowest sav- 
ages up to St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, with Buddha, 
Mahomet and Swedenborg on the way, we find records 
which, though morally and intellectually much differ- 
ing, are, in psychological essence, the same." 3 

The reason why the great body of scientific men 
refuse to accept telepathy is that it is the first step 
into a land whose existence science has hitherto denied ; 



^yslop: Borderland of Psychical Research, p. 190. 
2 Savage: Life Beyond Death, p. 266. 
"Myers : Human Personality, p. 338. 



226 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

and it is the first step that counts. If telepathy were 
the whole story! But, as Myers says, 1 "If we have 
once got a man's thought operating apart from his 
body — if my fixation of attention on the two of dia- 
monds does somehow so modify another man's brain 
a few yards off that he seems to see the two of dia- 
monds floating before him — there is no obvious halting 
place on his side till we come to 'possession' by a de- 
parted spirit, and there is no obvious halting place on 
my side till we come to 'traveling clairvoyance,' with 
a corresponding visibility of my own phantasm to other 
persons in the scenes which I spiritually visit." 

The evidence proving telepathy is strong, clear, al- 
most conclusive; but your scientist dares not admit 
it because of the further admissions to which he will 
then be bound. Before the scientist "ever looms the 
bogy of spiritism" ; and as a consequence, telepathy is 
denied, or explained away without investigation. In 
the early days of the Society for Psychical Research, 
special emphasis was laid upon the active investigation 
of telepathy, and with such success that in two years 
the Society was able to claim "to have proved the reality 
of thought transference." But the way of the Society, 
because of the astounding nature of the conclusions 
which it so soon reached, was not an easy one. It was 
hampered by the very richness of the hitherto un- 
touched field which it was opening up. 

In the introduction to his Human Personality and Its 
Survival of Bodily Death, Myers says of this forma- 
tive period in the Society's history: "Our methods, 
our canons, were all to make. In those early days we 



1 Myers : Human Personality, p. 191. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 227 

were more devoid of precedents, of guidance, even of 
criticism that went beyond mere expression of con- 
tempt, than is now readily conceived." 1 

But, as we have already seen, within a few short 
years the Society felt itself able to establish "the thesis 
that a communication can take place from mind to 
mind by some agency not that of the recognized organs 
of sense. We found that this agency, discernible even 
on trivial occasions by suitable experiment, seemed to 
connect itself with an agency more intense, or at any 
rate more recognizable, which operated at moments of 
crisis or at the hour of death." 2 

It must not be inferred that that Society stands alone 
in the conclusions which, after extended experimenta- 
tion, it has reached. Dr. Hudson arrived at an iden- 
tical result independently; M. Flammarion and M. 
Richet, among others, have formed concurrent conclu- 
sions. 

Fraudulent Telepathic Phenomena 

With telepathy, as with every other phenomena of 
spiritualism, there is, besides the minute portion that 
has been accepted by the psychic researcher as genuine, 
a luxuriant parasitic growth of fraud and trickery. 
"Mind-reading" is in the repertoire of every prestidigi- 
tator; and each professional, if he be of any note, has 
evolved a new method cleverer in some respect than 
those of his fellow craftsmen. It will be worth while 
for us to examine one or two instances of this fake 
telepathy, if only to ascertain wherein it differs from 
the genuine. 



^Myers: Human Personality, v. I, p. 7. 
'Ibid , v. I, p. 8. 



228 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Code question and answer from the assistant in the 
audience to the "professor" on the stage, is an old 
device, probably familiar to the reader. This method 
is too bungling, however, for the modern "business" 
of magic, and other ways are devised by which the 
usher assistant conveys secretly the desired informa- 
tion to the blindfolded reader. 

"The performer passes among the audience, and is 
shown numbers on bills, dates on coins, etc., which 
the assistant on the stage immediately names correctly. 

"The secret lies in the fact that the performer has, 
passed up his legs, and inside the trousers, copper 
wires, the ends of which connect with metal plates on 
the soles of his shoes, and so arranged that the circuit 
may be completed by pressing together two wires, 
separated by a spring, which is directly under the per- 
former's waistcoat. He stands on the metal rim of 
the carpet which runs down the aisle, and to the other 
ends of which are attached wires, leading either to 
the assistant directly, or to some third person, who 
conveys the message to the assistant upon the stage 
by means of signals. When the performer sees the 
date on the coin, the number of the banknote, etc., all 
he has to do is to touch the two wires together a cer- 
tain number of times, and the signal is interpreted 
at the other end of the line. A code is always employed 
to shorten and quicken the process." 1 

There is another large class of "thought-reading" 
experiments which involves the answering of questions 
written on a piece of paper seen only by the writer. 
Here, again, the methods of fraud are legion; the cu- 



^arrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 297. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 229 

rious will find a large number detailed by Mr. Carring- 
ton. I can here but give two samples, 

"The medium has written and sent up to him a num- 
ber of questions on separate slips of paper, and these 
ate all piled before him on the table. He picks up 
one of these, puts it to his forehead, and, after more 
or less hesitation, tells its contents. It is acknowledged 
as correct by some member of the audience, and the 
medium immediately opens the paper and verifies the 
fact that he has given the message correctly. The next 
pellet is picked up and the contents read in like man- 
ner, until all the pellets have been read in turn. . . . 
The secret consists in the fact that the medium has a 
confederate in the audience, the contents of whose 
pellet he already knows. This pellet is marked, so that 
the medium can distinguish it from all the others in 
the pile. He picks up any pellet in the heap but his 
confederate's, and holds it against his forehead. After 
a time he reads aloud the contents of the confederate's 
slip, which that person acknowledges as correct. As 
soon as he has done so, the medium opens the pellet, 
ostensibly to ascertain if he has read its contents cor- 
rectly, thereby gaining a knowledge of the contents 
of that pellet, which he reads as the contents of the 
next one, and so on thruout the entire pile, the medium 
keeping 'one ahead' all the time and reading each 
pellet in turn." 1 

Of course the trick is nothing but a very simple 
legerdemain; but when well performed it is astonish- 



'Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 
279-80. 



230 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

ingly convincing. Here is another, however, which 
is somewhat more ingenious: 

"A trick-table has a hollow leg, which fits over a 
hole in the floor of the room, and communicates with 
the room below. The top of the table is covered with 
(i) a piece of thin silk, (2) a piece of carbon-paper, 
the size of the top of the table, placed over the silk, and 
(3) a very thin oilcloth covering, stretched tightly over 
the top of the table. To one corner of the silk is at- 
tached a thread, and this passes down to the room 
below, thru the hollow leg of the table. 

"When the sitter is seated at the table the medium 
hands him one sheet of paper and a pencil, with the 
request that he (the sitter) write a question on the 
paper, and immediately fold it up and place it in his 
pocket. Meanwhile the medium leaves the room, 'so 
that he shall not see what the sitter is writing upon 
his piece of paper.' The sitter writes the question, 
as directed, and after folding up the paper places it 
in his pocket. No sooner has he done so, however, 
than the medium returns to the room, and astonishes 
the sitter by informing him of the contents of the paper 
in his pocket. 

"As may be imagined, the trick is worked by means 
of the table, and in this way : The sitter, having only 
one sheet of paper in his hands, and having no solid 
substance against which to press this, naturally places 
the paper on the table, and writes his question in that 
manner. The pressure of the pencil, pressing upon the 
carbon-sheet, makes a copy of the question on the silk 
sheet underneath it, and the medium has only to pull 
it off the table and down into the room below. Then 
he is enabled to read the question, and on going back 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 231 

to the seance-room he can astonish his sitter by telling 
him what is on the folded-up paper in his pocket. This 
is an extremely effective test." 1 

But very early in the history of alleged telepathic 
phenomena appeared cases that were very evidently not 
the result of mere trickery. "A large blackboard was 
placed upon an easel, on the stage, and the performer, 
after securing a number of persons from the audience 
to assist him . . . would have himself securely blind- 
folded by the members of the committee, and then step 
up to the blackboard, chalk in hand. ... A banknote 
would now be handed to some other member of the 
committee, and he, grasping the hand of the mind- 
reader, would concentrate his mind on the number of 
the note. The performer would then proceed to trace 
on the board, very slowly, the number of this note, 
which the assistant would certify was correct. . . . 
Each of the above-mentioned performers succeeded in 
opening a safe, the combination of which they did not 
know, they merely holding the hand of the person who 
did know the combination." 2 Here was something 
which the hypothesis of fraud would not cover. It 
will be noted that in each case, however, the "reader" 
was in touch with the person thinking the message, and 
it was not very long before it was discovered that the 
explanation of the alleged "telepathy" was "muscle- 
reading." "The person holding the performer's hand 
gave him the required information by means of slight, 
unconscious movements, which the performer inter- 
preted, also more or less unconsciously." 3 



Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 282-3. 
2 Ibid., pp. 292-3. Hbid., p. 294. 



232 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

So expert did these muscle-readers become, that they 
were able to do really astonishing feats. One is record- 
ed, for instance, of driving a cab across the city blind- 
folded and finding a hidden article. 

But there were other phenomena that even muscle- 
reading could not explain — cases of apparent thought 
transference when the "percipient" (the person receiv- 
ing the message) was at a distance, even miles, from 
the sender. For these cases the psychicist found him- 
self forced back to the hypothesis of telepathy. Of 
professional "exhibitions of mind-reading," however 
inexplicable they may seem, Mr. Carrington sounds this 
note of warning : "We know nothing, as yet, however, 
of the laws that govern . . . telepathy, and cannot 
command the phenomena to appear at our beck and 
call, or summon them at will ; and consequently, any 
one who does so at once stamps himself as an impostor. 
. . . The only thing we know about telepathy is that — ■ 
we know nothing about it ! When, therefore, public 
performers give nightly exhibitions of 'thought-read- 
ing,' 'clairvoyance,' and so on, it may be taken for 
granted that these exhibitions are nothing more than 
clever conjuring performances." 1 

Spontaneous Telepathy 

I shall first cite an early instance of spontaneous 
telepathy, selecting one which is most typical, re- 
gardless in this case of the rigidity of the tests sur- 
rounding it. I do this, not to give proof of telepathy, 
but to show the kind of material existent which the 



'Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 291-3. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 233 

Society used as a starting point for its own investiga- 
tions. It is a letter to the English Spectator, signed 
by the author, Mrs. Caroline Barber : 

"I had one day been spending the morning in shop- 
ping, and returned by train just in time to sit down 
with my children to our early family dinner. My 
youngest child — a sensitive, quick-witted little maiden 
of two years and six weeks old — was one of the circle. 
Dinner had just commenced, when I suddenly recol- 
lected an incident in my morning's experience which 
I had intended to tell her, and I looked at the child 
with the full intention of saying, 'Mother saw a big 
black dog in a shop, with curly hair,' catching her eyes 
with mine as I paused an instant before speaking. Just 
then something called off my attention, and the sen- 
tence was not uttered. What was my amazement, 
about two minutes afterward, to hear my little lady an- 
nounce, 'Mother saw a big dog in a shop.' I gasped, 
'Yes, I did!' I answered, 'but how did you know?' 
'With funny hair,' she added quite calmly, and ignoring 
my question. 'What color was it, Evelyn?' said one 
of her elder brothers. 'Was it black?' She said 'Yes.' 

"Now, it was simply impossible that she should have 
received any hint of the incident verbally. I had had 
no friend with me when I had seen the dog. All the 
children had been at home, in our house in the coun- 
try, four miles from town; I had returned, as I said, 
just in time for the children's dinner, and I had not 
even remembered the circumstance until the moment 
when I fixed my eyes upon my little daughter's." 1 

It is very difficult, in fact impossible, as the reader 



'Quoted in Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 113. 



234. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

will at once see from the example given, to prove genu- 
ine reported cases of spontaneous telepathy. They rest 
entirely on the word of the reporter. Prepared tests, 
under conditions absolutely excluding fraud or chance, 
are perhaps no less interesting, and infinitely more con- 
clusive. 

The method generally used by the Society in its test 
experiments in telepathy is thus described by Sir Oliver 
Lodge in his account of Mr. Malcolm Guthrie's Liver- 
pool sittings: 1 ''The experiments which I have wit- 
nessed proceed in this sort of way : One person is told 
to keep in a perfectly passive condition, with a mind 
as vacant as possible ; and to assist this condition the 
organs of sense are unexcited, the eyes being bandaged 
and silence maintained. It might be as well to shut 
out the ordinary street hum by plugging the ears, but 
as a matter of fact this was not done. 

"A person thus kept passive is 'the percipient.' In 
the experiments I witnessed the percipient was a young 
lady, one or other of two who had been accidentally 
found to possess the necessary power. Whether it is 
a common power, or not, I do not know. So far as 
I am aware, very few persons have been tried. I my- 
self tried, but failed abjectly. It was easy enough to 
picture things to oneself, but they did not appear to 
be impressed on me from without, nor did any of them 
bear the least resemblance to the object in the agent's 
mind. For instance, I said a pair of scissors instead 
of the five of diamonds, and things like that." 

In this connection it might be interesting to quote 
an experience of the late Dr. Hudson, throwing 



*See the S. P. R. Proceedings, v. I, pt. 6, pp. 190-8. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? £35 

light, as it does, on the very natural question, Is 
telepathy a faculty dormant in every person, capable 
of being developt by proper training ? "I determined, 
if possible, to develop the faculty in my own mind, at 
least far enough to resolve any lingering doubt that 
might be unconsciously entertained. Accordingly, I 
caused myself to be securely blindfolded in the pres- 
ence of my family and two or three trustworthy friends, 
and instructed them to draw a card from the pack, 
place it upon a table, face up, and in full view of all 
but myself. I enjoined absolute silence, and requested 
them to gaze steadily upon the card and patiently await 
results. I determined not to yield to any mere mental 
impression, but to watch for a vision of the card itself. 
I endeavored to become as passive as possible and to 
shut out all objective thoughts. In fact, I tried to go 
to sleep. I soon found that the moment I approached 
a state of somnolence I began to see visions of self- 
illuminated objects floating in the darkness before me. 
If, however, one seemed to be taking definite shape 
it would instantly rouse me, and the vision would van- 
ish. At length I mastered my curiosity sufficiently to 
enable me to hold the vision long enough to perceive 
its import. When that was accomplisht, I saw — not 
a card with its spots clearly defined, but a number of 
objects arranged in rows, and resembling real dia- 
monds. I was finally able to count them, and finding 
that there were ten, I ventured to name the ten of 
diamonds. The applause which followed told me that 
I was right, and I removed the bandage and found 
the ten of diamonds lying on the table. The vision 
was symbolical merely, but no other possible symbol 



236 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

could have conveyed a clearer idea of the fact as it 
existed." 1 

To return to the account by Sir Oliver Lodge : "An- 
other person sitting near the percipient, sometimes at 
first holding her hands, but usually and ordinarily with- 
out any contact at all but with a distinct intervening 
distance, was told to think hard of a particular object, 
either a name, or a scene, or a thing, or of an object 
or drawing set up in a good light and in a convenient 
position for staring at. This person is 'the agent,' and 
has, on the whole, the hardest time of it. It is a most 
tiring and tiresome thing to stare at a letter, or a tri- 
angle, or a donkey, or a teaspoon, and to think of noth- 
ing else for the space of two or three minutes. Wheth- 
er the term 'thinking' can properly be applied to such 
barbarous concentration of mind as this I am not sure ; 
but I can answer for it that if difficulty is an important 
element in the definition of 'thinking,' then it is difficult 
enough in all conscience. 

"Very frequently more than one agent is employed, 
and when two or three people are in the room they 
are all told to think of the object more or less strenu- 
ously, the idea being that wandering thoughts in the 
neighborhood certainly cannot help, and may possi- 
bly hinder, the clear transfer of impression. As re- 
gards the question whether, when several agents are 
thinking, only one is doing the work, or whether all 
really produce some efifect, I have made a special ex- 
periment which leads me to conclude that more than 
one agent can be active at the same time. We con- 
jecture that several agents are probably more power- 



Hudson : The Evolution of the Soul, p. 188. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 237 

ful than one, but that a confusedness of impression may 
sometimes be produced by different agents attending 
to different parts or aspects of the object; this, how- 
ever, is mere conjecture. 

"Most people seem able to act as agents, tho some 
appear to do better than others. I can hardly say 
whether I am much good at it or not. I have not 
often tried alone, and in the majority of cases when 
I have tried I have failed; on the other hand, I have 
once or twice apparently succeeded. We have many 
times succeeded with agents quite disconnected from 
the percipient in ordinary life, and sometimes complete 
strangers to them . . . 

"The object looked at by the agent is placed, usu- 
ally, on a small, black, opaque wooden screen, between 
the percipient and agents, but sometimes it is put on 
a larger screen behind the percipient." 
The Proof of Telepathy 

The above gives a very clear idea as to how the 
telepathic experiments were conducted. Obviously, 
nothing could be simpler or fairer. Now for some 
examples of the ideas transmitted. First, the transmis- 
sion of thoughts of objects. In these experiments, re- 
corded by Sir Oliver Lodge, 1 a Miss R. was the per- 
cipient, and Mr. Birchall, mentioned above, the agent. 

"Object — a blue square of silk. — (Now, it's going 
to be a color; ready!) 'Is it green?' (No.) 'It's 
something between green and blue. . . . Peacock.' 
(What shape?) She drew a rhombus. . . . 

"Next object — a key on a black ground. — (It's an 
object.) In a few seconds she said, 'It's bright. ... It 

*S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. L, Part VI., pp. 190-8. 



238 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

looks like a key.' Told to draw it, she drew it just in- 
verted. 

"Next object — three gold studs in morocco case. — Ts 
it yellow ? . . . Something gold . . . Something round 
... A locket or a watch, perhaps.' (Do you see more 
than one round?) 'Yes; there seem to be more than 
one. . . . Are there three rounds? . . . Three rings.' 
(What do they seem to be set in?) 'Something bright, 
like beads.' (Evidently not understanding or attend- 
ing to the question.) Told to unblindfold herself and 
draw, she drew the three rounds in a row quite cor- 
rectly, and then sketched around them absently the 
outline of the case, which seemed, therefore, to have 
been apparent to her, tho she had not consciously at- 
tended to it. It was an interesting and striking experi- 
ment. 

"Next object — a pair of scissors, standing partly 
open, with their points down. — Ts it a bright object? 
. . . Something long ways (indicating verticality). 
... A pair of scissors standing up. ... A little bit 
open.' Time, about a minute altogether. She then 
drew her impression, and it was correct in every par- 
ticular. The object in this experiment was on a settee 
behind her, but its position had to be pointed out to 
her when, after the experiment, she wanted to see it. 

"Next object — a drawing of a right-angle triangle 
on its side. — (It's a drawing.) She drew an isosceles 
triangle on its side. 

"Next — a circle with a cord across it. — She drew 
two detached ovals, one with a cutting line across it. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 239 

"Next — a drawing of a Union Jack pattern. — As 
usual in drawing experiments, Miss R. remained silent 




m 



ORIGINAL 



REPRODUCTION 



for perhaps a minute, then she said, 'Now I am ready.' 
I hid the object; she took off the handkerchief, and 
proceeded to draw on paper placed ready in front of 
her. She this time drew all the lines of the figure 
except the horizontal middle one. She was obviously 
much tempted to draw this, and, indeed, began it two 
or three times faintly, but ultimately said, 'No, I'm not 
sure,' and stopped." 

Here are two interesting "Experiments at a Sitting 
in the room of Dr. Herdman, Professor of Zoology at 
University College." 

"Object — a drawing of the outline of a Hag. — Miss 
R., as percipient, in contact with Miss E. as agent. 



ORIGINAL 



REPRODUCTION 



Very quickly Miss R. said, 'It's a little flag' ; and when 
asked to draw, she drew it fairly well, but perverted. 



240 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

I showed her the flag (as usual after a success), and 
then took it away to the drawing-place to fetch some- 
thing else. I made another drawing, but instead of 
bringing it I brought the flag back again, and set it 
up in the same place as before, but inverted. There 
was no contact this time. Miss R — d and Miss E. were 
acting as agents. 

"Object — same Hag, inverted. — After some time 
Miss R. said : 'No, I can't see anything this time. I 
still see that flag. . . . The flag keeps bothering me. 
... I shan't do it this time.' Presently I said, Well, 
draw what you saw, anyway.' She said, 'I only saw 
the same flag, but perhaps it had a cross on it.' So she 
drew a flag in the same position as before, but added 
a cross to it. Questioned as to aspect, she said, 'Yes, 
it was just the same as before.' " 

Mr. Guthrie also conducted a very remarkable se- 
ries of twelve drawings, some rather complicated, by 
thought transference. The results obtained were de- 
cidedly in support of the telepathic theory, even the 
partial failures, as is often the case, being corrobora- 
tive, and very interesting. These drawings are re- 
produced by Dr. Funk in The Widow's Mite. 

An interesting variation was made in one case: one 
agent thought of one drawing and simultaneously an- 
other agent thought of another drawing, the percipient 
not knowing that anything unusual was being tried. 
"A mixed and curiously double impression was thus 
produced and described by the percipient, and both 
the objects were correctly drawn." The account says : 
"Miss R — d and Miss E. happened to be sitting near- 




I. The table at rest 




A Typical Table Levitation with Eusapia Paladino 

The man on the right is Flammarion, on the left Lombroso 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 



241 



ly facing one another. . . . The drawing was a square 
on one side of the paper, a cross on the other. Miss 



X 



ORIGINALS 



R — d looked at the side with the square on it. Miss 
E. looked at the side with the cross. Neither knew 
what the other was looking at. . . . Mr. Birchall was 
silently asked to take off his attention, and he got up 
and looked out of the window before the drawings 
were brought in, and during the experiment. There 
was no contact. Very soon Miss R. said, 'I see things 
moving about. ... I seem to see two things. ... I 
see first one up there and then one down there. ... I 
don't know which to draw. ... I can't see either dis- 
tinctly.' (Well, anyhow draw what you have seen.) 
She took off the bandage and drew, first, a square, and 
then said, 'Then there was the other thing as well . . . 



H 



REPRODUCTION 



afterward they seemed to go into one,' and she drew 
a cross inside the square, from corner to corner, add- 



242 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

ing afterward, 'I don't know what made me put it in- 
side.' M1 

Another decidedly encouraging series of experi- 
ments was conducted by Edmund Gurney and Fred- 
eric Myers, the transference this time being, not 
of thoughts of objects, but of tastes. "The agent was 
Mr. G. A. Smith, and the 'subject' a very intelligent 
young cabinetmaker, named Conway, who had been 
thrown into a light hypnotic trance. For the first set 
Mr. Smith was in light contact with Conway, behind 
whom he stood. No hint was given to Conway as to 
whether his answers were right or wrong; he was 
simply asked by Dr. Myers or myself what he felt. 
Mr. Smith kept perfect silence thruout. 2 

I now gave Mr. Smith 

in succession — Conway said : 

Sugar "Sweeter ; not so bad as before." 

Citric acid "Bitter ; something worse — a lit- 
tle reminds me of cayenne — 
sweety." 

r A raspberry drop "A sweetish taste — like sugar." 

Salt "I told you I liked sweet things, 

not salt — such a mixture !" 

Cloves "Don't like it; hot — little bit of 

honey mixed with it." 

Salt "Something acid, salty — first one 

thing, then another — like 
brine." 

1 See Nature for June 12, 1884. 

a See S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. II., Part VI., pp. 205-6. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 248 

Powdered ginger "Hot; dries your mouth up. 

Don't like it — reminds me of 
mustard." 

Sugar "A little better — a sweetish 

taste." 

Powdered alum "You call that sweet, do you? 

Brackish and bitter this — 
enough to skin your mouth out 
—bitter." 

Cayenne pepper. "It's hot, and there is some sugar 

in it, just to soften it over a 
bit. It is hot — you would feel 
hot, I can tell you." 

Cloves. "Not so very much better, but 

it's sweeter; it's sugar, only 
something else with it." 

Vinegar Conway had sunk into a deeper 

hypnotic sleep, and made no 
remark." 
These examples, remember, are not isolated cases, 
but typical ones selected from a vast accumulation of 
telepathic data. The curious, and perhaps incredulous, 
reader, is strongly urged to examine the Proceedings 
and other publications of the Society for Psychical 
Research. 

Mathematical proof is generally most convincing of 
any, and fortunately is here not lacking. If we can 
demonstrate that the number of correct answers given 
by a percipient is many times greater than the laws of 
mere chance would allow, we have strong evidence of 
the reality of telepathy. Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, 



244 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

among others, made extensive experiments along this 
line. Playing-cards or numbers were generally select- 
ed for the thought transmission, as it was with them 
easier to calculate the mathematical chances. 

The principle involved is simple. If a person is told 
that some number between I and ioo is to be thought 
of, the chances are ioo to I that he will guess the cor- 
rect number. In other words, the chances are that out 
of every hundred guesses he will get one right. If 
we find that instead of one out of a hundred, the per- 
cipient gets thirty or forty or sixty "guesses" right, we 
say, quite reasonably, that there must be something 
more here than guessing. 

Similarly, with a pack of cards ; the chances that a 
person will guess correctly the suit of any card chosen 
at random are 4 to 1 ; the chances that he will guess 
the number of a card correctly are 13 to 1 ; the chances 
that he will name correctly both suit and number — that 
is, tell the exact card out of the whole pack — are 52 
to 1. If, therefore, the percipient manages forty times 
out of fifty to tell you correctly the exact card you 
are thinking about, you say at once there must be 
thought transference here. 

The actual percentages of Professor Sidgwick's ex- 
periments are not quite as high as in our supposititious 
case ; but they are many times greater than pure chance 
would indicate. "The results were : Twenty-three tri- 
als, with six answers right the first time and six the 
second guess. Counting only the correct answers for 
the first guess, the percentage was one in three and 
three-fourths, or twenty-six per cent., against one 
chance in fifty-two, or about two per cent., as cards 
were used. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 245 

"Professor Balfour Stewart reports a table much 
better than this. He experimented with numbers be- 
tween ten and one hundred; with objects, and names, 
as well as cards. 

Things No. of No. right on If first guess rhancps 

chosen trials ist. guess 2d. guess only counted 

Cards 36 10 91 right in 3% 1 in 52 
Nos. from 

10 to 100 20 5 3 1 " " 4 1 " 90 

Objects 21 6 1 1 " " 3 " 1 "40 

Names 8 4 3 1 " " 2 Indefinite 

"To remove the objections which might be based 
very naturally upon fraud and suggestion in certain 
conditions, the committee made experiments in which 
the selected objects were known only to one or more 
of the committee itself, and the results were summar- 
ized in the following statistics, the things chosen being, 
variously, cards, numbers and words. There were 497 
trials made. Of these, ninety-five were correct on the 
first guess . . . forty-five on the second . . . five on 
the third. . . . The chances for success were estimated 
as one in forty-three, while the actual success was one 
in 5i> or two per cent, for the chances and nineteen 
per cent, for the successes." 1 



Telepathic Hypnosis and Suggestion 
Soon after telepathy began to be studied, and proofs 
of its existence began to accumulate, the question was 
asked: If thoughts (impressions) can be thus trans- 
mitted at a distance, why cannot motor suggestions 
(expressions) ? In other words, if I can make you, 



^yslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, pp. 122-3. 



246 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

perhaps miles away, think of the picture of which I 
am thinking, why cannot I make you, still miles away, 
move your arm as I suggest to you telepathically ? 

The best answer, of course, was to try and see ; and 
we have one or two striking examples of this telepathic 
suggestion. We have already mentioned the case of 
Conway, receiving telepathically the tastes of things 
which another man was eating. Of hypnosis exerted 
telepathically, Myers gives one remarkable instance : 

"The subject of these experiments . . . was Profes- 
sor Pierre Janet's well-known subject, Madame B. 
The experiments were carried out with her at Havre, 
by Professor Janet and Dr. Gibert, a leading physi- 
cian there. . . . 

"In the evening (226) we all dined at M. Gibert's, 
and in the evening M. Gibert made another attempt to 
put her to sleep at a distance from his house in the 
Rue Sery — she being at the Pavilion, Rue de la Ferme 
— and to bring her to his house by an effort of will. 
At 8.55 he retired to his study, and MM. Ochorowicz, 
Marillier, Janet, and A. T. Myers, went to the Pavil- 
ion, and waited outside in the street, out of sight of the 
house. At 9.22 Dr. Myers observed Madame B. com- 
ing half way out of the garden gate, and again re- 
treating. Those who saw her more closely observed 
that she was plainly in the somnambulic state, and was 
wandering about and muttering. At 9.25 she came out 
(with eyes persistently closed, so far as could be seen), 
walked quickly past MM. Janet and Marillier without 
noticing them, and made for M. Gibert's house, tho 
not by the usual or shortest route. ( It appeared after- 
ward that the bonne had seen her go into the salon at 
8.45, and issue thence, asleep, at 9.15; had not looked 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 247 

in between those times) . She avoided lamp-posts, ve- 
hicles, etc., but crossed and recrossed the street re- 
peatedly. No one went in front of her or spoke to 
her. After eight or ten minutes she grew much more 
uncertain in gait, and paused as tho she would fall. 
Dr. Myers noted the moment in the Rue Faure ; it was 
9.35. At about 9.40 she grew bolder, and at 9.45 
reached the street in front of M. Gibert's house. There 
she met him, but did not notice him, and walked into 
his house, where she rushed hurriedly from room to 
room on the ground-floor. M. Gibert had to take 
her hand before she recognized him. She then grew 
calm. 

"M. Gibert said that from 8.55 to 9.20 he thought 
intently about her, from 9.20 to 9.35 he thought more 
feebly ; at 9.35 he gave the experiment up, and began 
to play billiards; but in a few minutes began to will 
her again. It appeared that his visit to the billiard- 
room had coincided with her hesitation and stumbling 
in the street. But this coincidence may, of course, -have 
been accidental. . . Z' 1 

Another example of a similar power is noted by Dr. 
Hyslop in his discussion of telepathic experiments, the 
object of which was to induce unconsciousness in some 
portion of another person's body by merely thinking it. 

"There were 107 trials at the production of anesthe- 
sia by telepathy in a selected finger, the finger selected 
varying as required. There was, of course, one chance 
out of ten each time that the finger would be guessed, 
if it were a mere question of telepathy or getting what 

1 See the Bulletins de la Societe de Psychologie Physiologique, 
tome 1, p. 24, and Revue Philosophique, August, 1886. See 
also Myers: Human Personality, pp. 382-3. 



248 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

the agent was thinking about. But here the additional 
circumstance that anesthesia was to be produced makes 
the matter more difficult and interesting. But of the 
107 trials, sixty-three, or nearly fifty-nine per cent., 
were successes ; and forty, or more than forty-six per 
cent., of the instances were failures. The chances 
against success were enormous when the whole num- 
ber is taken into account." 1 

The field that these and similar experiments open 
up for a possible enlargement of our normal human 
powers is, obviously, so wonderful as to be little short 
of miraculous. If I can, by merely thinking, paralyze 
a man's finger on the opposite side of the room, there 
is no reason in the nature of the phenomena why I 
cannot spontaneously, by merely thinking, paralyze a 
man's whole body on the opposite side of the world. 
If I can, by thinking, make a man near me imagine 
he is tasting salt, there is no reason in the nature of 
the phenomena why I cannot, by merely thinking, cause 
my friend in Greenland to taste and imagine he is eat- 
ing a square meal. (This genuinely Barmecide feast 
would probably give him very slender nourishment, 
however!) Do the Arabian Nights or Baron Mun- 
chausen present any wilder dreams of the imagination 
than these wonders that sober scientists and psycholo- 
gists assert are veritable actual facts? 

What Is Telepathy? 

Regarding the nature or cause of this telepathic abil- 
ity, questions are easy to ask, but difficult to answer. 
Myers believed, and his opinion is concurred in by 
other investigators, that telepathy is one of the powers 
of the "subliminal self," that great submerged portion 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 249 

of our personalty of which I have already spoken. 
When we wish to exert telepathic powers, the first 
thing we do is to put in abeyance the supraliminal (or 
ordinary) self. That is, as the percipient shuts out her 
ordinary consciousness, stops up the senses of sight 
and hearing, so much the more clearly does the sub- 
liminal self do its telepathic work. If the condition 
is carried a step further, and the percipient is lightly 
hypnotized (that is, remember, the body is put un- 
der the control of the subliminal self), the ability to re- 
ceive telepathic messages is correspondingly again in- 
creased. 

It is as if a man in his normal consciousness saw 
with his normal eyes, heard with his material ears, 
thought with a brain of cell and tissue. But let a por- 
tion of the subliminal consciousness be put in control 
of his body — even tho it be involuntary, and for a sec- 
ond's flash of time — and the man finds he exerts the 
same abilities of sight and hearing and thinking, but 
abilities marvelously magnified many times. 

How this happens, we, as yet, simply don't know; 
but that it does happen, a very large number of very 
eminent scientists sincerely believe. 



"WE ONLY DEAL WITH PRESUMPTION AND 
PREJUDICES" 

The question, "Are the Dead Alive?" means, I suppose, "Does 
consciousness survive the death of the body?" It is at present 
impossible — setting aside faith and religion — for any mortal to 
answer this question on grounds of actual experimental knowl- 
edge. We only deal with presumption and prejudices. Since 
man was man, it has been sufficiently obvious that normal in- 
telligence — "the mind" — develops and decays as the fleshly 
body develops and decays. The mind flourishes and is at its 
best, as a rule, between the ages of eighteen and twenty- 
eight, in my private opinion, but every one can fix the age of 
intellectual vigor in accordance with his own observation, 
knowledge and experience. It is admitted, universally, that 
the mind, like the body, has its periods of growth, maturity, 
decadence and decay. Consequently, it is a natural inference 
that when the bodily life of the individual is extinct, the life 
of the mind vanishes like the flame of a burned-out candle. It 
is no less clear, and has been clear to mankind from the 
first, that the normal consciousness can be extinguished, tem- 
porarily, by a sufficient knock on the head; and that in dream- 
less sleep it gives no signs (to its owner's normal conscious- 
ness) of its existence. The inference that death is a sleep 
which knows no waking is no ancient commonplace. When 
modern science minutely examines the nervous and cerebral 
mechanisms, and knows that each mental action has a cerebral 
concomitant, the conclusion that consciousness, that mental 
existence, is a bodily function, like digestion, seems quite 
natural. 

Yet we have only presumptions. On the other side, since 
man was man, other phenomena have been observed which 
have led to the opposite conclusion. Among human faculties 
those of clairvoyance, or "Vue a distance," and telepathy — 
communication between mind and mind through no known 
250 



[ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 251 

channel of the senses; of precognition and retrocognition — 
the inexplicable knowledge of things past and things future — 
have always been recognized in belief, and have, by many, 
been accepted as facts of experience. If they are facts — and 
I am persuaded that they are — and if the system which we 
call materialism can only ignore them and deny them without 
examining the evidence, then there is no limit to the range 
and possibilities. Consciousness so independent of a known 
material base for such exploits may be capable of a separate 
existence, for all that we can tell. But till science pays more 
serious attention to the alleged phenomena, every one will 
form an opinion, or go without an opinion, in accordance with 
his own temperament, bias and information. As the Greek 
poet says, "Soon shall we know better than prophets." 

— Andrew Lang. 



CHAPTER XI 
PREMONITIONS 

I have set by themselves a large and important group 
of telepathic phenomena that we call premonitions. I 
say "telepathic"; but we shall note several examples 
where the information received could apparently come 
from no mortal mind. 

A premonition is advance information of a coming 
event, imparted to our consciousness inexplicably, and 
often instantaneously. We say that we have "premoni- 
tions" of impending disaster. What do we mean? 

Examples will probably occur to every reader; the 
literature of spiritualism is full of them. "A . . . Mr. 
Skirving . . . was irresistibly compelled to leave his 
work and go home — why, he knew not — at the moment 
when his wife was, in fact, calling for him in the dis- 
tress of a serious accident." 1 

"A Mr. Garrison, . . . left a religious meeting in 
the evening, and walked eighteen miles under the 
strong impulse to see his mother, and found her dead." 2 

"Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, famous for her devoted 
services during the war, and one of the greatest 
woman speakers that the world has ever known, told 



1 See Myers : Phantasms of the Living, v. i, p. 285. 
2 S. P. R. Journal, v. 8, p. 125. 
252 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 253 

me how her life was saved during her travels in the 
West, on a certain occasion, by her hearing and in- 
stantly obeying a voice. She did not know where it 
came from, but she leaped as the voice ordered her to, 
from one side of a car to the other, and instantly the 
side where she had been sitting was crushed in and 
utterly demolished." 1 

"A bricklayer has a sudden impulse to run home, 
and arrives just in time to save the life of his little boy, 
who had set himself on fire." 2 

"A Boston dentist had been working at a set of 
teeth, and was bending over the bench on which was 
the copper containing the rubber, when* he heard a 
voice calling, in a quick and imperative manner, these 
words : 'Run to the window, quick ! Run to the win- 
dow, quick!' twice repeated. Without thinking from 
whom the voice could have come, he at once ran to 
the window and looked out to the street below, when 
suddenly he heard a tremendous report in his work- 
room, and looking around, he saw the copper vessel 
had exploded, and had been blown up thru the plaster- 
ing of the room." 3 

"Major Kobbe . . . was prompted to visit a distant 
cemetery, without any conscious reason, an'd there 
found his father, who had, in fact, for certain unex- 
pected reasons, sent to his son, Major Kobbe, a request 
(accidentally not received) to meet him at that place 
and hour." 4 



lavage: Life Beyond Death, p. 284. 
2 Myers : Phantasms of the Living, v. 2, p. 377. 
"Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, pp. 310-H. 
"Myers : Phantasms of the Living, v. 1, p. 288. 



254 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

All these are typical cases 1 out of a great number. 
What does it mean? Whence come these mysterious 
warning voices that stand us in such good stead? 

To take an even more striking example : "Mr. Wm. 
H. Wyman writes to the editor of the Arena as fol- 
lows : 

"'Dunkirk, N. Y., June 26, 1891. 

" 'Some years ago my brother was employed, and 
had charge as conductor and engineer of a working 
train, on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Rail- 
way, running between Buffalo and Erie, which passes 
thru this city. ... I often went with him to the Grave 
Bank, where he has his headquarters, and returned on 
his train with him. On one occasion I was with him, 
and after the train of cars was loaded we went to- 
gether to the telegraph office to see if there were any 
orders, and to find out if the trains were on time, as 
he had to keep out of the way of all regular trains. 
After looking over the train reports, and finding them 
all on time, we started for Buffalo. As we approached 
near Westfield Station, running about twelve miles per 
hour, and when within about one mile of a long curve 
in the line, my brother all of a sudden shutt off the 
steam, and quickly stepping over to the fireman's side 
of the engine, he looked out of the cab window, and 
then to the rear of his train, to see if there was any- 
thing the matter with either. Not discovering any- 
thing wrong, he stopped and put on steam, but almost 
immediately again shut it off and gave the signal for 
brakes, and stopped. After inspecting the engine and 

Several others are mentioned in Myers: Human Person- 
ality, p. 372, 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 255 

train, and finding nothing wrong, he seemed very much 
excited, and for a short time he acted as if he did not 
know where he was or what to do. I asked what was 
the matter. He replied that he did not know, when, 
after looking at his watch, and others, he said that he 
felt that there was some trouble on the line of the 
road. I suggested that he had better run his train to 
the station and find out. He then ordered his flagman 
with his flag to go ahead around the curve, which was 
just ahead of us, and he would follow with the train. 
The flagman started, and had just time to flag an extra 
express, with the general superintendent and others 
on board, coming full 40 (forty) miles per hour. The 
superintendent inquired what he was doing there, and 
if he did not receive orders to keep out of the way 
of the extra. My brother told him that he had not re- 
ceived orders, and did not know of any extra train 
coming; that we had both examined the train reports 
before leaving the station. The train then backed to 
the station, where it was found that no orders had 
been given. The train despatcher was at once dis- 
charged from the road ; and from that time to this both 
my brother and myself are unable to account for his 
stopping the train as he did." 1 

These, especially the last, are evidently anticipations 
of future events; and in an earlier chapter we had two 
very striking cases of actual precognition, or prophecy. 

What Is the Explanation of Premonition? 

There are apparently three, and only three, possible 
explanations of premonition. 



Reported in S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 9, p. 416. 



256 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

i. Telepathy: that is, that the information received, 
sometimes in the flash of a second, was known (that 
is, was in the mind) of some other human being some- 
where, and was communicated instantaneously to the 
percipient's mind. This theory does not explain, how- 
ever, why the percipient, almost invariably busy with 
other matters, should be in a proper state of sensitive- 
ness to receive a telepathic message; it does not ex- 
plain why this warning should come, as it often does, 
in the very "nick of time," as we say ; it does not ex- 
plain those cases — like that of the Boston dentist, or 
Mrs. Livermore in the railroad accident — in which it 
is impossible to conceive how the warning knowledge 
could be in any other mind. 

2. The second explanation is what Frederic Myers 
calls hyperesthesia; that is, temporary abnormal acute- 
ness of the senses; a hearing or seeing power of the 
subliminal self greater than the supraliminal self (the 
ordinary consciousness) could ever exert. But altho, 
in some way that seems to us just as miraculous, the 
engineer might have heard unconsciously the approach 
of that express, many miles away, tho the dentist 
might have seen, subconsciously, some danger signal 
in his laboratory vessel which he automatically obeyed, 
it is difficult to see how this could explain Professor 
Thoulet's telegram, not written till ten days after he 
sazv it, or the sight of the suicide of Mr. Espie, which 
did not occur until a week later. 

3. The third explanation is that the premonition is 
given by spirits. This is, of course, if we accept the 
spiritualistic hypothesis at all, the easy solution of 
nearly all premonitions. They are messages whispered 
by the spirits of the departed to our subconscious self, 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 257 

warning us, whom they love, of the approaching dan- 
ger which they are able to foresee. Certainly this 
hypothesis accounts for the instantaneous timeliness 
of many of these premonitions as neither of the other 
hypotheses do. 

I am familiar with no other explanation of premoni- 
tion than those given. To the theories of hyperes- 
thesia and telepathy there are certainly grave objec- 
tions; but many will think the theory of spiritual 
help, from a scientific standpoint, even more objec- 
tionable. 



"WE ARE AT THE DAWN OF A NEW RELIGION" 

We have a soul which is making and perfecting its own 
body. This life is not the first we have lived, nor will it be 
the last. The material body is passing on from one evolution 
to another, and the soul from one reincarnation to another. 
This is my belief, but that has not been in any radical way 
influenced by my researches in metaphysical science. 

The words in the Bible declaring that there is nothing new 
under the sun are still good. To-day we only differ as re- 
gards our belief in the problem of haunted houses, tipping 
tables and materialized spirits. And, most of all, our method 
of studying them has progressed. Psychic phenomena existed 
in the days of the ancient Romans. The trials and punish- 
ments of sorcerers and witches exist upon the statute books 
of the European courts of the fifteenth century. In early times 
the truth of sorcery, witchcraft, evil spirits and of visions 
was never questioned. If I am not mistaken, a few witches 
were burned even in America, at Salem, Massachusetts. 

To-day — and it is only to-day — scientific men, professors, 
chemical experts, doctors — most of all those interested in 
nervous and neurotic cases— have taken up seriously the study 
of a certain class of facts which have come inevitably under 
their observation. 

I am not blind to the fact that my testimony, unaided, 
would be of very little importance. I have made my experi- 
ments in my own way, for my own enlightenment, without 
any thought of convincing some one else against his will as 
to the truth of my observations. But the results of my labors, 
added to those of such men as Richet, Myers, Lombroso, 
Hodgson, Flammarion, Lodge and others, make a tangible be- 
ginning on the threshold of a science which, if not altogether 
new, is still almost wholly unexplored. Perhaps — I say per- 
haps — out of this will come the unraveling of the mystery 
of the "au-dela"<— the future life. I feel sometimes as if I 



& 




Dr. V. Maxwell 

A French lawyer and physician, who, taking up the subject at first 
as a hobby, has become one of the most careful and enthusiastic of all 
the investigators of psychical phenomena. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 259 

were on the dawn of a new religion, one in which all humanity 
will he united; one without a ritual, one where no propa- 
ganda will be necessary. 

The revival of interest in metapsychical phenomena in the 
present century dates practically from the advent of the Fox 
sisters, of Rochester, New York. Thus we may say that the 
present reaction against materialism comes in a great wave 
out of the West. It has permeated every civilized land, pene- 
trated into every station of life, and is sweeping the material- 
ism of the German school, for instance, off its feet and into 
oblivion. It would be manifestly impossible here for me 
to go into any details as to my experiments and observations. 
I will, therefore, only outline a few facts. 

I have demonstrated to my entire satisfaction that there 
exists in nature a force capable of moving objects at a dis- 
tance without contact. 

This force is often manifested by raps or other noises, 
and the nature of it remains as yet hidden or unexplained. 
On occasions it seems to be a conscious or intelligent force 
or forces, and there are abundant examples to indicate that 
it might be the spirits of the dead. The preponderance of 
evidence, however, goes to prove that it is an exteriorized 
force emanating from the medium and from the sitters in a 
seance. And here we come in contact with a fact which we 
cannot explain. That is, that only certain persons are gifted 
with the mediumistic force. To find a good medium, or 
psychic, is one of the greatest stumbling blocks in the path- 
way of the investigator. In my own experience, the most 
powerful natural mediums I have found have been persons 
in private life, people of position not easily accessible to the 
demands of the operator, who under no circumstance would 
permit their names to be used in connection with a published 
report. Mediums, like singers, are born; and, like singers, it 
takes time, patience and much work to make their manifesta- 
tions of practical or scientific value. 

The analysis of intellectual phenomena raises difficulties 
which are much more complicated than the simple observa- 
tion of a physical fact. 

For this reason I have given my attention principally to 



260 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

the study of physical phenomena. In this I have to defend 
myself only against two enemies — the fraud of others and 
my own illusions. Now, I feel certain of never having been 
the victim of either. When, for example, as has happened in 
my experience many times, I have seen in the refreshment- 
room of a railway station, in a restaurant or in a tea-shop, 
in broad daylight, a piece of furniture change place of its 
own accord, I have a right to think I am not in the presence 
of furniture especially arranged to produce such effects. When 
I make sure of the absence of contact between the experi- 
menters and the article which is displaced, I have sufficient 
reason to exclude the hypothesis of fraud. When I measure 
the distance between the objects before and after displacement, 
I have sufficient reasons for excluding the hypothesis of the 
illusion of my senses. If this right be refused me, I should 
like to know how any fact whatever can be observed. I have 
but one answer for those who may distrust my qualifications 
as an observer: Let them take the trouble of experimenting 
for themselves. 

I have no decided opinion as to the nature and origin of 
this force. 

It may be kindred to the energy which circulates in our 
nerves, and causes our muscles to draw up. I have always 
thought there was nothing supernatural in these phenomena. 
My conclusions have not changed. I can only certify to their 
existence as a fact. 

I observed once a medium whose perspiration was luminous. 
When coming from the daylight into a dark room, his head, 
collar and hair were phosphorescent. That is not a meta- 
physical phenomenon, only a physiological one, due to the 
presence of calcium sulphide on the perspiration. But with 
the same medium, and with two other ones, I have witnessed 
on many occasions the phenomenon called by spiritualists 
"spirit lights." These lights are bright sometimes, and at 
other times very weak. They do not last long, but disappear 
in a few seconds. My observations are not sufficient in num- 
ber to allow me to have an opinion on their cause. But 
their reality seems probable to me. They seemed to obey the 
same laws as the movements and raps. y. Maxwell. 



CHAPTER XII 
MEDIUMSHIP 

So far we have been considering this psychic prob- 
lem entirely from one end — your and my -end, the earth- 
world end. Supposing for a moment that we may see 
more clearly the setting of the stage for the final act 
in this drama of spiritism, let us view the problem 
from an imaginary other end. Let us suppose we are 
"spirits," whatever that means, in a future existence, 
wherever that may be, and try to imagine what we 
would do. 

In the first place, we assume that we would want 
to communicate, if possible, with those we left behind 
on earth. 

But how should we communicate ? On earth we re- 
ceive communications thru one of two senses — sight 
or hearing. Why should "spirits" be thought to com- 
municate otherwise ? But how can they ? arises the im- 
mediate question, for speaking necessitates material 
organs of speech ; writing involves a bodily hand to 
grasp a pencil. The spirit is immaterial ; has no body ; 
needs none to communicate in its own world. 

Immediately comes the answer : the spirit may tem- 
porarily use some living person's body ! Exactly : and 
that is just what it seems to do. Really, when you 
think about it, is not that the natural and simple thing 
261 



262 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

for a disembodied spirit to do? Myers says he con- 
siders the main objection usually raised to mediumistic 
communications really a confirmatory point. He says : 
"I should have expected knowledge of a future world 
to come, if at all, thru some use made by disembodied 
spirits of living organisms/' 1 And to those who can- 
not see why there need to be mediums, Dr. Minot J. 
Savage asks a question which impresses me as at the 
same time an excellent answer : "People ask me again 
and again — and I am answering these questions as tho 
I believed — if the people in the other world, my friends 
in the other world, can communicate with anybody, 
why don't they come directly to me ? Why must they 
go to a psychic, a stranger, somebody about whom I 
know nothing? 

"In the first place, I tell you frankly I do not know 
anything about it. But I have a theory which seems 
to me a very reasonable one. Let me ask a counter 
question. If electricity will run along a wire — I am 
using the old theory that electricity is a fluid, but I 
do not know what it is, and do not know of any 
one who does — if electricity can convey a message 
from Chicago to New York over a wire, why cannot 
it convey it over a board fence ? I do not know ; and 
there is nobody in the world who does know." 

We even have examples of cases where discarnate 
spirits have tried hard to write or speak directly, with- 
out making use of some human body as a medium, but 
have failed. Sir W. Crookes gives a very striking 
case of this : "My second instance [of direct writing] 
may be considered the record of a failure. 'A good 



J Myers in the National Review for 1898, p. 232. 






ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 263 

failure often teaches more than the most successful 
experiment.' It took place in the light, in my own 
room, with only a few private friends and Mr. Home 
present. Several circumstances, to which I need not 
further allude, had shown that the power that evening 
was strong. I therefore expressed a wish to witness 
the actual production of a written message such as 
I had heard described a short time before by a friend. 
Immediately an alphabetic communication was made as 
follows: 'We will try.' A pencil and some sheets of 
paper had been lying on the center of the table ; pres- 
ently the pencil rose up on its point, and after advan- 
cing by hesitating jerks to the paper, fell down. It 
then rose, and again fell. A third time it tried, but 
with no better result. After three unsuccessful at- 
tempts a small wooden lath, which was lying near, upon 
the table, slid toward the pencil and rose a few inches 
from the table; the pencil rose again, and propping 
itself against the lath, the two together made an effort 
to mark the paper. It fell, and then a joint effort was 
again made. After a third trial the lath gave it up 
and moved back to its place, the pencil lay as it fell 
across the paper, and an alphabetic message told us, 
'We have tried to do as you asked, but our power is 
exhausted.' " 1 

But having assumed that the spirits will communi- 
cate thru some human body, what determines whose 
they shall use? Why do they use some "medium's"? 
Why not yours or mine, if you or I are the ones they 
wish to communicate with? 

And here, again, the spiritualist's answer is simple, 



'Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874., pp. 89-90. 



264 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

and sounds plausible. The supplanting of a person's 
own spirit by the exterior spirit of a deceased person 
is, he says, a very delicate operation ; but few persons 
are psychically able to allow the use of their body to 
these spiritual "controls." Certain conditions, certain 
abilities, a certain training, are prerequisite ; and these 
you and I may not happen to possess. 

And we have some clue, too, as to what these pre- 
requisites are. We have already seen that one part 
of our personality, the subliminal part, seems able to 
practice certain powers of telepathy and clairvoyance 
quite exceeding our normal human experience. These 
are powers, too, which racial tradition and popular be- 
lief have attributed to beings of a higher order of ex- 
istence, and particularly to the "spirits" of the dead. 

These unusual powers of the subliminal self are de- 
veloped in comparatively few persons, and these chosen 
apparently at random from the great mass of human 
beings. In other words — and this is the gist of all 
"mediumship" — but a few persons are able to meet 
the deceased "spirits" on a common ground, on a com- 
mon basis of subliminal ability; only a few, that is, 
are "sensitive" to communications from the other 
world. But is it not an assumption, you may ask, to 
assert that there is any connection between telepathy 
and sensitiveness to spirit communications ? It is ; but 
there are several facts that seem to support it. Tel- 
epathy, for instance, seems to occur only in a momen- 
tary or partial trance, or at least when the subliminal 
self is wholly or partly in control of the body. Just 
so spirit messages are received (except very rarely) 
when the body is in a whole or partial state of trance. 

When we say, therefore, that the subliminal self is 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 265 

in very close connection, or working harmony, with 
the discarnate spirit, we shall probably be not far 
wrong. Myers goes so far as to say, "Considering . . . 
the evidence which shows that that portion of the per- 
sonality which exercises these powers during our earth- 
ly existence does actually continue to exercise them 
after our bodily decay, we shall recognise a relation — 
obscure but indisputable — between the subliminal and 
the surviving self." 1 

But do not ask me why -the spirit is not able to write 
without using a bodily instrument. I do not know; 
no man on earth knows. As Mr. Myers well says, it is 
our duty not to argue or complain why mediums can, 
or why you and I cannot, do it, but to "search for and 
train such other favored individuals as already show 
this form of capacity . . . always latent, perhaps, and 
now gradually emergent in the human race." You 
have no more right to ask why a discarnate spirit must 
transmit its message thru a medium than to ask why 
3'ou or I do not happen to be able' to practice telepathy 
or see clairvoyantly. 

We may premise at the very beginning, then, that 
the task of our discarnate spirits from the other world, 
even if they were desirous of communicating, would 
not be an easy one. We find that we would have to 
express ourselves thru some human body, or not at all ; 
and, alas ! we would find, too, that there are in all the 
world apparently few persons who have the power to 
enter into communication with us. So we would 
search till our discarnate spirit, as Frederic Myers 
says in a very striking passage, "seeking . . . for some 

2 Myers : Human Personality, p. 168. 



266 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

open avenue, discerns something which corresponds 
... to a light — a glimmer of translucency in the con- 
fused darkness of our material world. This 'light' 
indicates a sensitive — a human organism so constituted 
that a spirit can temporarily inform or control it, not 
necessarily interrupting the stream of the sensitive's 
ordinary consciousness ; perhaps using a hand only, or 
perhaps, as in Mrs. Piper's case, using voice as well 
as hand, and occupying all the sensitive's channels of 
self-manifestation." 1 

"But all this amounts to nothing," you may inter- 
rupt impatiently; "it is all, as you yourself have con- 
fessed, pure assumption. I can just as well assume 
something entirely different; and can you then find 
flaws in my assumption ?" 

Yes; you will have no shadow of proof to support 
an assumption utterly and thruout different from mine. 
I have made a series of related assumptions; a little 
later we shall see how remarkably closely the facts 
seem — mind you, I say seem — to bear them out. 

The Phenomena of "Automatism " 
We soon find, however, that tho an overwhelming 
proportion of alleged messages from the spirit world 
are transmitted thru mediums, they come in various 
ways, with some of which the medium may seem to 
have little to do. 

In the second article of the series we discussed at 
some length the "physical phenomena" of mediumship. 
We saw that rappings, table-tipping, etc., are claimed 
by the spiritualist to be evidence of the existence of 

1 Myers : Human Personality, p. 335. 



s£&s<sC^<n^^<¥si^^ji^^ o^j^iX* ^"y<2yU^, *^/£Z<^ 



<a^»-o ^f£^-i^^OL-^C 




I. A Typical Example of "Spirit Writing" 

This is the medium's normal handwriting. (Compare this with the plates 
facing pages 276 and 286). 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 267 

spirits; and we stated hi:, reason — or one of his rea- 
sons — for making that claim, namely, that the phenom- 
ena seemed to him to be too remarkable to admit of 
any "natural" explanation. And I have shown, too, 
that this claim is considered by many of those scientists 
who have really investigated the phenomena to be 
unwarranted. They admit the occurrence of genuine 
rappings and table-tippings, but assert, nevertheless, 
that these phenomena are explicable without any 
"spirit" intervention. The subliminal self, they say, 
may be able and probably does in rare instances exert 
genuine powers of telepathy, telekinesis and clairvoy- 
ance. "Yes, we admit now your wonderful phenom- 
ena," they continue, "but we can explain them all with- 
out any spiritual help; you must bring forward some 
better reason than that to make your 'spirit' hypothesis 
scientifically tenable." 

And the spiritualist thereupon brings forward his 
second reason, a reason that we have hardly heretofore 
mentioned, the fact that table-tipping, rapping, and, in 
fact, all the physical phenomena of spiritualism, are 
occasionally a means of transmitting messages; and 
the further fact that these messages are of such a na- 
ture that they could come only from another world. 

This, as you can readily see, is a very important 
fact. It is surprising enough for a table to float up 
into the air of its own accord ; but it is more surprising 
if, by some code arranged with it, it raps out an intel- 
ligent sentence ; and it is even more astonishing if this 
sentence is a bit of information, afterward found to 
be entirely true, but at the moment of its delivery un- 
known and unsuspected by any person in the room. 



268 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

This, we must admit, is a very strong argument for 
spiritualism. Is any other hypothesis possible now? 

I have purposely, heretofore, omitted any discussion 
of the message-transmitting phase of all these phe- 
nomena. The alleged spiritualist message is occasion- 
ally transmitted by tappings, by table-tippings, by 
slate-writing, by flashes of light, etc., but it is seen in its 
fullest development, is most often given, and has been 
for years most carefully studied, thru automatisms; 
that is, thru direct writing and speaking by a medium. 
Now, the arguments for and against the spiritualistic 
origin of these messages are identical, whether they 
come thru a table controlled by a medium, or thru her 
own hand. If we work out the problem in one case 
we do it in all. If we can prove one is due to spirits, 
we have proved the others are. It has, therefore, 
seemed wise to postpone this final problem, the authen- 
ticity of spirit messages, until we have described au- 
tomatisms, the most typical and perfectly developed of 
all spiritual phenomena. I have, therefore, described 
and discussed all the previous phenomena only in their 
independent aspects ; but the reader will now under- 
stand that everything said in the future regarding mes- 
sages received by direct writing applies equally well 
to those received by table-tipping, etc. 

Various Phases of Motor Automatism 

In the light trance which is the typical condition for 
communication the medium may either speak or write 
the messages which come to her. In the more com- 
mon examples she merely repeats messages given her 
by persons "on the other side." In its most developt 
form, however — that is, motor automatism (as in Mrs. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 269 

Piper's case) — the spirit claims to take entire control 
of the medium's body (in other words, to be an exam- 
ple of "possession," like the "Watseka Wonder" al- 
ready noticed). The medium then speaks, not in her 
own voice, but in the voice — so far as she can do so — ■ 
of the alleged spirit ; her handwriting is not her own, 
but changes with that of each spirit who uses her body ; 
her gestures are not her normal ones, but may be 
characteristic of the discarnate spirit who claims to 
be present. In other words, the medium speaks and 
acts in every way as the spirit who claims to be in 
control of her body would do. "The influence of the 
subject's mind," says Dr. Hyslop, "conscious and un- 
conscious, is completely suppressed, and the nervous 
system becomes a delicate machine for the intromission 
of messages from without, affecting it as an automatic 
piece of machinery." 1 

Sometimes the personalities claiming to have con- 
trol are of very different kinds of people. Mile. Smith, 
the famous medium observed by Professor Flournoy, 
and described at length in his From India to the Planet 
Mars, not content with having among her numerous 
"controls" Cagliostro, the magician of the sixteenth 
century, and an Indian princess, imported, in later 
phases of her mediumship, spirits from Mars ! In his 
very interesting book, Professor Flournoy has many 
samples of the Martian writing and sketches of Mar- 
tian landscapes drawn by these Martian spirits, who 
claimed to be using Mile. Smith's fingers. 

Frederic Myers defines most clearly this phenomena 



hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 344. 



270 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

of possession, or motor automatism. "In possession 
the automatist's [the medium's] own personality does 
for the time altogether disappear, while there is a 
more or less complete substitution of personality ; writ- 
ing or speech being given by a spirit thru the entranced 
organism. . . .These phenomena of possession are now 
the most amply attested, as well as intrinsically the 
most advanced, in our whole repertory. 1 

"The claim, then, is that the automatist, in the first 
place, falls into a trance, during which his spirit par- 
tially 'quits his body'; enters at any rate into a state 
in which the spiritual world is more or less open to its 
perception ; and in which, also — and this is the novelty 
— it so far ceases to occupy the organism as to leave 
room for an invading spirit to use it in somewhat the 
same fashion as its owner is accustomed to use it. 

"The brain being thus left temporarily and partially 
uncontrolled, a disembodied spirit sometimes, but not 
always, succeeds in occupying it; and occupies it with 
varying degrees of control. . . . 

"The controlling spirit proves his identity mainly 
by reproducing, in speech or writing, facts which be- 
long to his memory and not to the automatist's mem- 
ory. He may also give evidence of supernormal per- 
ception of other kinds. 

"His manifestation may differ very considerably 
from the automatist's normal personality . . . the 
spirit selects what parts of the brain machinery he will 
use, but he cannot get out of that machinery more 
than it is constructed to perform. The spirit can, in- 
deed, produce facts and names unknown to the autom- 



l Italics are mine. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 271 

atist; but they must be, as a rule, such facts and 
names as the automatist could easily have repeated, 
had they been known to him ; not, for instance, math- 
ematical formulse or Chinese sentences, if the autom- 
atist is ignorant of mathematics or of Chinese." 1 

Sometimes two spirits, as Myers suggests, struggle 
for control of the medium's body; sometimes two or 
more control different parts of the medium's body at 
the same time; sometimes a second one comes and 
pushes the first one out, and the first one slinks hur- 
riedly away — or at least these are the impressions given 
to those present. Questions are asked the spirit and 
answered directly in speech or writing. When she 
awakes from the trance she generally, but not always, 
remembers absolutely nothing of all that has taken 
place. "After a time," says Mr. Myers, "the control 
gives way, and the automatist's spirit returns. The 
automatist, awaking, may or may not remember his 
experiences in the spiritual world during the trance. 
In some cases (Swedenborg) there is this memory of 
the spiritual world, but no possession of the organism 
by an external spirit. In others (Cahagnet's subject) 
there is utterance during the trance as to what is being 
discerned by the automatist, yet no memory thereof on 
waking. In others (Mrs. Piper) there is neither ut- 
terance as a rule, or at least no prolonged utterance, 
by the automatist's own spirit, nor subsequent mem- 
ory ; but there is writing or utterance during the trance 
by controlling spirits." 4 

This, then, is the phenomena of automatism as de- 
scribed by a spiritualist ; let us examine for ourselves. 

^yers : Human Personality, Vol. II., pp. 190-91. 
2 Ibid., p. 191. 



272 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Rules for Conducting Mediumistic Experiments 
Dr. Hyslop lays down the most important rules for 
the conduct of mediumistic experiments, rules which 
he says must be observed before we have the slightest 
right to consider the possibility of a supernormal 
source for the communications: 

(i) "In various ways the extent of the medium's 
honesty must be attested. This is not because any 
scientific results should depend upon honesty > but be- 
cause the belief or proof of it will remove the first 
objection of the skeptic. 

(2) "The statements, testimony, beliefs and opinions 
of the medium will count for nothing in scientific proof 
of the supernormal. 

(3) "The medium should not know the sitter or 
person coming at first to experiment. This precaution 
shuts out a certain type of fraud as impossible. . . . 

(4) "Adequate allowance, whether in or out of the 
trance, must be made for 'suggestion,' or conscious or 
unconscious hints from the sitter, in which informa- 
tion may be conveyed to the medium. 

(5) "As perfect a record as possible should be made 
and kept of all that is said and done by the medium 
and experimenter. 

(6) "The quality of the facts or evidence in favor 
of the supernormal must be such as excludes explana- 
tion by chance coincidences, guessing, suggestion, sec- 
ondary personality, and fraud of all kinds; that is, 
they should take the nature of tests. . . . 

(7) "In applying the spiritualistic hypothesis to the 
phenomena we must be careful to observe that the facts 
have a definite bearing upon the question of the per- 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 273 

sonal identity of deceased persons not known to the 
medium." [That is, those "spirits" who claim to be 
communicating, themselves unknown to the medium, 
must, be able to prove by their communications that 
they are whom they- claim to be. This proving of per- 
sonal identity, of which more, will be said later, is a 
thing upon which the spiritualist rightly lays- great 
stress.] 

(8) If the medium remains normally conscious; 
that is, does not go into a trance state, "proper allow- 
ance must be made" for the possible influence of the 
medium's own. mental and physical condition. 

(9) "When a trance is secured we have to exclude 
all phenomena that can be explained by 'secondary 
personality/ or unconscious mental action. Not all 
that occurs in a trance, if any of it, is attributable to 
supernormal sources. We must be able to distinguish 
between what comes from without the subject and. 
what is consciously and unconsciously produced." 

Here is the crux of the whole spiritistic problem: 
if part of the phenomena occurring in the trance state 
can be ascribed to the subliminal self (the "secondary 
personality," of Dr. Hyslop), can it not all be so ac- 
counted for, thus dropping altogether the hypothesis 
of spirits? This problem must be considered at more 
detail later. 

Typical Mediumistic Phenomena 

I am first going to quote a mediumistic experience 
of Dr. Funk, because in subject matter and a con- 
fusing combination of defmiteness and indefiniteness 
it is typical. 



n 4 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

"Shortly after this experience of mine with Miss 
B. (the medium) there was visiting in my home in 
Brooklyn a niece of my wife's, whose home was in 
Toledo, Ohio. She was a total stranger in New York. 
I will here call her Miss M. Miss M. had had some 
experience in Ohio in investigating psychic phe- 
nomena. ... As she was a stranger in the city, I 
thought it well to have her make a test visit to Miss 
B., which she did in. November, 1903. . . . 

"Miss M. is a rapid stenographer, and made notes 
on the back of the envelopes of what the medium said 
about each. In her report to me she said that 

" 'Miss B. did not at any time 'fish' for information, 
as is usual with many mediums, and I gave her not the 
slightest clew about myself, my own name, home, or 
history, or about the contents of any of the envelopes ; 
nor did she ask a single question about any until after 
she had given what information she could.' 

"Miss M. took with her a number of sealed envel- 
opes. Among these were three prepared by myself. 
These I got ready in my library, without the slightest 
intimation being given to Miss M. or to any one else 
as to their contents. 

"Envelope one contained a medical thesis written 
by the father of Miss M., who was a physician. It 
was nearly forty years old. The paper was written, in 
the opinion of Miss M., when her father was attending 
medical lectures at Willoughby College in Ohio. The 
medium, after touching the envelope, said : 

" 'I hear the. word "Toledo." I get the letters "F" 
and "W." I do not know what these letters mean. 
I also get the name "Ella." This Ella is your oldest 
sister. There are three of you.. I see two brothers- 



ARE. THE DEAD. ALIVE? 275 

in-law. You are not married. Your oldest sister has 
six children. You are not living with her, but you 
have been together during the summer. Your oldest 
sister does not live in Toledo, but toward Cincinnati. 
Your father says, 'Tell Ella she has not heart trouble ; 
it is only nervousness." I hear "Tom." Your sister 
has a son by that name." ' 

"Miss M. tells me that This reading by the medium 
was correct in every point. She did not fumble, half 
utter a name and then change it. Each name was 
given correctly at first. The letters "F" and "W" were 
correct, if F referred to the surname of my father, 
and W if it referred to the name of the college for 
which this thesis was prepared.' The medium also 
gave an accurate detailed description of the cemetery 
,and grave where Miss M.'s father and mother are bur- 
ied. She said: 

" 'Your father says you need not worry so much 
about the condition of the grave; that that does not 
signify. Your father also says, "I knew at 11.30 on 
Thursday night that I could not get well." ' 

"Miss M. informs me that she has a hired man to 
take care of the graves, and that she has been con- 
cerned because the burial plot has been permitted to 
run down. Her sister Ella had expressed concern 
about her heart; naturally so, because both her father 
and her mother had died of heart trouble. Miss M. 
also says, 'My father died on March 7, 1890; the night 
before his death he had a very bad turn, and we felt 
that he had given up all expectation of getting well. 
He died about two hours afterward.' After getting 
this report from Miss M., I looked in a perpetual cal- 
endar, and found that March 7 fell on Friday. Miss 



276 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

M. informs me that her father died at 1.30 a.m. Hence 
the Thursday night in the message is correct." 1 

The second example of automatism is interesting be- 
cause it shows how incongruous some of the com- 
municators are with the medium and those present with 
her. The receipt of the communication taken from 
the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 
is thus described, "Miss A.," the medium, writing au- 
tomatically while entranced: "On June 27, 1891, Miss 
A. took pencil in hand. - The following notes were 
made directly after the sitting, and the automatic script 
is in my hands (Mr. F. W. H. Myers). 2 The hand- 
writing of the soi-disant Jack Creasy is barely legible 
and of an uneducated type. 

["Much scribbling. At last, very illegibly, and many 
times, was written] 'Jack.' 

('Jack who?) (Miss A. said, 'I dare say Jack the 
Ripper, or some one of that kind.') 

Jack Creasy. 

(What do you want?) 

Help pore Mary. 

(Where did you live?) 

[Very illegible.] Fillers [or] Tillers Buildings. 

(Where?) 

Greenwich. 

"(Are you in the flesh?) 



1 Funk: The Widozv's Mite, pp. 227-9. 

2 As generally in descriptions of mediumistic communica- 
tions, the matter here given in parentheses ( ) is the questions 
of those interrogating the medium; that outside the parenthe- 
ses is the automatic writing of the medium. Various explana- 
tory notes are put in brackets C ]. 



luA: \\ 




II. A Typical Example of "Spirit Writing" 

Automatic communication, purporting to come from Dr. Hyslop's 
father, written by the medium, Mrs. Smead, in successive trances. 
(Reproduced from Hyslop's "Preliminary Report on the Trance Phe- 
nomena of Mrs. Smead.") Compare this with the plates facing pages 
266 and 286. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 277 

No — flesh all burnt. [Then a rude drawing, not rec- 
ognizable.] 

(Were you burnt?) 

Yes — piche kitl. 

(In Fillers Buildings?) 

In Blackwell Road. 

(When?) 

Long — perhaps twenty month. 

(Was it an accident?) 

Awful. Mister Lennard put us to shift the mixter ; 
Bob Heal put the light for me the pitch vat cort. 

"(What works?) 

Tar. 

(At Greenwich?) 

Yes, Blackwell Rode. 

(What kind of works?) 

Abot. 

(Do you mean Abbot's works?)' 

Abots — yes — yes — Blackwell. 

(Were many killed?) 

I know nothin'. 

(What help do you want for Mary?) 

Don't know nothin' — find her — and help her — ask 
after pore Jack Creasy's Mary. 

(Is she at Greenwich? Can you give her address?) 

Can't tell — can't see — she was there. 

(Where?) 

Fullur (or Fillers) Buildings. Bless you. 

[No further writing occurred."] 

It is, perhaps, needless to say that none of those pres- 
ent knew of any "Jack Creasy," or had ever heard of 
such an accident as the one described. "Investigation 
proved, however, that a Jack Creasy had been burnt 



278 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

by an explosion of a pitch vat, and died from the effects 
of it. The accident took place in the tar-distilling 
works of Forbes, Abbot & Lennard, at Greenwich. 
The works were bounded on one side by Blackwell 
Lane. Apparently the name Fuller or Fillers is a 
mistake for Forbes, though we have no evidence of 
this. No such person as Bob Heal could be found, 
and the wife of Jack Creasy was not named Mary. 
The death of Jack Creasy occurred two years previous- 
ly, and was mentioned with the accident in the local 
papers, which it is probable that Miss A. never saw. 
Dr. Hyslop, in quoting the case, remarks that it is 
mainly "interesting for the apparent mental confusion 
in the 'communication.' "* 

A unique case, showing how, as often, the communi- 
cating spirit claims to have, and apparently does have, 
a knowledge above the normal, is that of Dr. "X," 
who was in frequent consultation with the "spirit" of a 
Dr. "Z" on the "other side." 

"Under other circumstances I have myself consulted 
Dr. Z. as to patients under my professional care. On 
each occasion he has given a precise diagnosis and has 
indicated a treatment, consisting mainly of dosimetric 
granules, sometimes associated with other treatment. 
These facts have been repeated many times, and I owe 
a great gratitude to Dr. Z. for the advice which he 
has given me. His prescriptions were always rational ; 
and when I showed fear as to certain doses which ap- 
peared to me too large, he took pains to reassure me, 
but stuck to his prescriptions. I have never had to 
repent following the advice of my eminent colleague 



1 Quoted in Hyslop : Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 366. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 279 

in the other world ; and I am bound to state that every 
time that a medical question has been submitted to him 
the replies and advice of Dr. Z. have been of astonish- 
ing clearness and precision." 1 

Apparently Supernormal Knowledge Displayed in Medium- 
istic Communications 

Here is a partial report of a seance held by Dr. 
Hyslop with a medium, Miss X., not a professional, 
"who took no pay for what she did, sat only for a few 
friends occasionally . . . and had no theories of her 
powers." 

Dr. Hyslop, who had had communications from what 
he had reason to believe to be the spirit of his father, 
had arranged with the latter a test sentence (in a for- 
eign language) known only to himself and Dr. Hodg- 
son, by which at future sittings with other mediums 
the elder Hyslop might at once prove his identity. 
Dr. Hyslop was unknown to the medium, and was in- 
troduced to her by those arranging the sitting as "Rob- 
ert Brown, of Nebraska." 

"Miss X. . . . did not go into a trance. The first 
words written were, 'Why, James.' Astonished at the 
promptness with which this correct hit at my name oc- 
curred, I asked, 'Who says that ?' and received the two 
Christian names and initial of the surname of my wife, 
who had died eight months before, the middle Chris- 
tian name being very unusual. This was given with a 
little difficulty and confusion. ... [A little later] 
followed this passage: 

" 'Your name is not Robert. It is James. Isn't it 



1 Quoted in Hyslop : Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 358. 



280 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

James ? Well, wait a little. We don't want too much 
flutter here.' 

" '(You know why I want full details.) Ah, but you 
have had these, now let me talk. Don't ask for more 
proof. (I have not had them from you.) I doubt 
if I can give you the one thing you most desire this 
moment. (What do I desire this moment?) [I was 
not conscious of any particular desire at the time. I 
was certainly not thinking of what was referred to in 
the reply.] The sign, well, not exactly password, but 
the test. If you will keep motionless I can be able to 
give even that.' 

"Here Miss X. remarked that she felt as if she were 
going to sleep, and that she was afraid she might go 
into some state which she did not like. She went to 
the window to throw off the tendency, and resumed 
the writing on her return. . . . The reference to the 
'sign, well, not exactly password, but the test,' is sur- 
prisingly accurate. It is not a password, but a pass- 
sentence, and hence a 'sign' or 'test.' The apparent 
tendency of Miss X. here to go into a trance in this 
connection is a most suggestive incident, as that is the 
condition in which I would most naturally expect the 
pass-sentence to be given. . . . Miss X. ... of course 
knew nothing of my expectation of a pass-sentence." 1 
Yet the skeptic will probably answer that after all the 
test sentence was not given. 

Reserving till a little later the logical history of the 
Piper case, I shall give one example of a seance held 
by Dr. Minot Savage with Mrs. Piper before she was 
studied by the Society for Psychical Research. 



l Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 236-8. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 281 

"I had sittings with Mrs. Piper years ago," he says, 
"before the society was organized, or her name was 
publicly known. On the occasion of my first visit to 
her she was, I think, in a little house on Pinckney 
Street, in Boston. At this time she went into a trance, 
but talked instead of writing. The first person who 
claimed to be present was my father. He had died in 
Maine at the age of ninety. He had never lived in 
Boston, nor, indeed, had he visited there for a great 
many years, so that there was no possibility that Mrs. 
Piper should ever have seen him, and no likelihood of 
her having known anything about him. She described 
him at once with accuracy, pointing out certain pe- 
culiarities which the ordinary observer, even if he had 
ever seen him, would not have been likely to notice. 
Without any question on my part she told me that it 
was my father, and added, 'He calls you Judson.' This, 
tho a little fact, is striking enough to call for notice. 
Judson is my middle name. ... In all my boyhood all 
the members of the family, except my father and my 
half-brother, soon to be referred to, had always called 
me Minot. Father had called me Judson thru my 
boyhood, as I always supposed, out of a tender feeling 
for the daughter who had given me the name. For 
fifteen or twenty years, however, before his death he 
had fallen into the family way, and had also called me 
Minot. It struck me, then, as peculiar and worthy of 
note that Mrs. Piper should actually describe him, and, 
among other personal peculiarities which she men- 
tioned, should have called up this tiny fact from the 
oblivion of the past. 

"She went on to say: 'Here is somebody else be- 
sides your father. It is your brother — no, your half- 



282 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

brother, and he says his name is John.' This John 
was my mother's boy. Then Mrs. Piper went on to 
describe, with somewhat painful accuracy, partly in 
pantomime and partly by speech, the method of his 
death; and she added: 'When he was dying, how he 
did want to see his mother!' Now this half-brother 
John had also been in the habit of calling me Judson 
in the years long past. It had been a good many years 
since I had seen him. He had never lived in Boston, 
and there is no conceivable way by which Mrs. Piper 
could have known anything about him. He was not 
consciously in my mind, and I was not expecting to 
hear from him. He had died a year or two before 
this in Michigan, in precisely the way in which the 
medium had described the facts. As to his exclamation 
about his mother, it came to me as peculiarly personal 
and appropriate, because he was one of those who 
would be spoken of as a 'mother-boy.' He was pas- 
sionately devoted to her." 1 

The Mediumship of William Stainton Moses 
No history of mediumship could profess complete- 
ness without some consideration of the life of the 
Rev. William Stainton Moses, of whom mention has 
already been made. He was in no sense a professional 
medium. A man of deeply religious and high moral 
character, he considered the communications, which 
he sincerely believed he received from the other world, 
solely in their ethical and spiritual significance. Tho 
on occasion exhibiting physical phenomena as remark- 
able as that of Home, he refused to attach any impor- 
tance to them, and being naturally retiring, gave lit- 



^uoted in Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 252. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 283 

tie opportunity for outside investigation. "He himself 
regarded them as a mere means to an end, in accord- 
ance with the view urged on him by his 'control' — that 
they were intended as proofs of the power and au- 
thority of these latter, while the real message lay in the 
religious teaching imparted to him." 1 Frederic Myers 
has summarized excellently Mr. Moses' peculiar place 
in the history of mediumship. 2 "Here was a man of 
university education, of manifest sanity and probity, 
who vouched to us for a series of phenomena — occur- 
ring to himself, and with no doubtful or venal aid — 
which seemed at least to prove, in confusedly inter- 
mingled form, . . . theses unknown to science. 
... He spoke frankly and fully ; he showed his note- 
books ; he referred us to his friends ; he inspired a be- 
lief which was at once sufficient, and which is still suffi- 
cient, to prompt to action. 

"My original impressions as regards Mr. Moses were 
strengthened," says Myers, "by the opportunity which 
I had of examining his unpublished MSS. after his 
death, on September 5, 1892. These consist of thirty- 
one notebooks — twenty-four of automatic script, four 
of records of physical phenomena, and three of retro- 
spect and summary. . . . 

"With the even tenor of this straightforward and 
reputable life was interwoven a chain of mysteries 
which, as I think, in what way soever they be explained, 
make it one of the most extraordinary which our cen- 
tury has seen. For its true history lies in that series 
of physical manifestations which began in 1872 and 



'Myers: Human Personality, p. 321. 
'Ibid., pp. 321-4. 



284 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

lasted some eight years, and that series of automatic 
writings and trance utterances which began in 1873, 
received a record for some ten years, and did not, as 
is believed, cease altogether until the earthly end was 
near. 

"These two series were intimately connected; the 
physical phenomena being avowedly designed to give 
authority to the speeches and writings which professed 
to emanate from the same source. . . . Mr. Moses was 
sometimes, but not always, entranced while these phys- 
ical phenomena were occurring. Sometimes he was en- 
tranced, and the trance utterance purported to be that 
of a discarnate spirit. At other times, especially when 
alone, he wrote automatically, retaining his own ordi- 
nary consciousness meanwhile, and carrying on lengthy 
discussions with the 'spirit influence' controlling his 
hand and answering his questions, etc. As a general 
rule, the same alleged spirits both manifested them- 
selves by raps, etc., at Mr. Moses' sittings with his 
friends, and also wrote thru his hand when he was 
alone. . . . When 'direct writing' was given at the 
seances, the handwriting of each alleged spirit was 
the same as that which the same spirit was in the habit 
of employing in the automatic script. The claim to 
individuality was thus in all cases decisively made. 

"Now, the personages thus claiming to appear may 
be divided roughly into three classes : 

"A. — First, and most important, are a group of per- 
sons recently deceased, and sometimes manifesting 
themselves at the seances before their decease was 
known thru any ordinary channel to any of the per- 
sons present. These spirits, in many instances, give 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 285 

tests of identity, mentioning facts connected with their 
earth lives which are afterward found to be correct. 

"B. — Next comes a group of personages belonging 
to generations more remote, and generally of some 
distinction in their day. Grocyn, the friend of Eras- 
mus, may be taken as a type of these. Many of these 
also contribute facts as a proof of identity, which facts 
are sometimes more correct than the conscious or ad- 
mitted knowledge of any of the sitters could supply. 
In such cases, however, the difficulty of proving iden- 
tity is increased by the fact that most of the correct 
statements are readily accessible in print, and may 
conceivably have either been read, and forgotten by 
Mr. Moses, or have become known to him by some 
kind of clairvoyance. 

"C. — A third group consists of spirits who give such 
names as Rector, Doctor, Theophilus, and, above all, 
Imperator. These, from time to time, reveal the names 
which they assert to have been theirs in earth life. 
These concealed names are, for the most part, both 
more illustrious and more remote than the names in 
Class B. . . . 

"These automatic messages were almost wholly writ- 
ten by Mr. Moses' own hand, while he was in a normal 
working state. The exceptions are of two kinds: (i) 
There is one long passage, alleged by Mr. Moses to 
have been written by himself while in a state of trance. 
(2) There are, here and there, a few words alleged 
to be in 'direct writing' — written, that is to say, by 
invisible hands, but in Mr. Moses' presence; as sev- 
eral times described in the notes of seances where other 
persons were present. 

"Putting these exceptional instances aside, we find 



286 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

that the writings generally take the form of a dialog, 
Mr. Moses proposing a question in his ordinary, thick, 
black handwriting. An answer is then generally, tho 
not always, given, written also by Mr. Moses, and 
with the same pen, but in some one of various scripts 
which differ more or less widely from his own. . . . 

"A prolonged study of the MS. books has revealed 
nothing inconsistent with this description. I have my- 
self, of course, searched them carefully for any sign 
of confusion or alteration, but without finding any; 
and I have shown parts of them to various friends, who 
have seen no points of suspicion. It seems plain, more- 
over, that the various entries were made at or about 
the dates to which they are ascribed. They contain 
constant references to the seances which went on con- 
currently, and whose dates are independently known; 
and in the later books, records of some of these seances 
are interspersed in their due places among other 
matter. The MSS. contain also a number of allusions 
to other contemporaneous facts, many of which are 
independently known to myself. 

"I think, moreover, that no one who had studied 
these entries thruout would doubt the originally pri- 
vate and intimate character of many of them. The 
tone of the spirits toward Mr. Moses himself is ha- 
bitually courteous and respectful. But occasionally 
they have some criticism which pierces to the quick, 
and which goes far to explain to me Mr. Moses' un- 
willingness to have the books fully inspected during 
his lifetime. He did, no doubt, contemplate their be- 
ing at least read by friends after his death ; and there 
are indications that there may have been a still more 
private book, now doubtless destroyed, to which mes- 









X "V 



^ 



~^ 



*»•**« 




(st\**~^Jr*^ 



III. A Typical Example of "Spirit Writing" 

Automatic communication, purporting to come from Dr. Hyslop's 
father, written by the medium, Mrs. Smead, in successive trances. 
(Reproduced from Hyslop's "Preliminary Report on the Trance Phe- 
nomena of Mrs. Smead.") Compare this with the plates facing pages 
a66 and 276. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 287 

sages of an intimate character were sometimes con- 
signed. . . . 

"That they were written down in good faith by 
Mr. Moses as proceeding from the personages whose 
names are signed to them, there can be little doubt. 
But as to whether they did really proceed from those 
personages, or no, there may in many cases be very 
great doubt — a doubt which I, at least, shall be quite 
unable to remove." 



"NO EXPERIMENTAL PROOF OF SURVIVAL AFTER 
DEATH WILL EVER REACH AN ABSOLUTELY CON- 
CLUSIVE SCIENTIFIC DEMONSTRATION" 

I take it that by the above question, addressed to me, is 
meant, "Have we any trustworthy evidence outside of the 
events recorded in the New Testament — evidence that will 
stand strict scientific scrutiny — that human personality sur- 
vives the death of the body?" In my opinion we have such evi- 
dence, and it is slowly but surely accumulating. At present I 
cannot say that there exists much psychical evidence of scien- 
tific value for the identity of the discarnate human spirit many 
months or years after death. The evidence begins to grow in 
abundance and weight as we approach a limited period after 
death; and when we come to within a few days, still more, 
within a few hours of death, the evidence becomes large in 
volume and conclusive in character. It may be that a decay 
or dissolution of the spirit, as of the body, takes place more 
or less slowly after death, possibly to be followed, as the Chris- 
tian religion gives us reason to hope, by, in many cases, a 
reintegration of the spirit and a transition to a larger and 
fuller life, the new and vivid environment of which would 
probably cause a more or less complete lapse of all earthly 
memories. 

Though in my opinion the weight of evidence will eventu- 
ally lead to a very general acceptance of the fact that human 
intelligence and self-consciousness can exist without a material 
brain and body, yet it seems to me highly probable that no 
single experimental proof of the survival of human personality 
after death will ever reach an absolutely CONCLUSIVE scien- 
tific demonstration. This particular field of psychical inquiry 
belongs to an order other than that with which science deals, 
and this being so, it cannot be adequately investigated with 
the limited faculties we now possess. On the other hand, those 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 289 

who have devoted long years to a searching investigation of 
the evidence of survival after death, and who have approached 
the subject in a scientific and judicial spirit, have found the 
cumulative value of the evidence to be so strong that it was 
impossible to withhold belief in the fact of that survival. In 
support of this it is only necessary to refer to that shrewd 
and able investigator, and at first complete agnostic, the late 
Dr. Hodgson. Both he and the late Frederic Myers were 
slowly but irresistibly driven to believe from recent evidence 
that human personality transcends the shock of death. Emi- 
nent scientific men, such as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William 
Crookes, Dr. A. R. Wallace, and others, have also been driven 
to the same opinion, and so was that acute thinker, the late 
Professor De Morgan, father of the now well-known novelist. 

It is sometimes urged that the manifestations of life in the 
unseen are so paltry as to excite contempt. But is anything 
paltry that manifests life? In the dumb agony which seizes 
the soul when some loved one is taken from us, and the awful 
sense of separation comes over and paralyzes us as we gaze 
on the lifeless form, should we deem the lifting of a finger or 
the movement of the lips, or any action of the dead, a paltry 
thing, if it assured us that death had not ended a loved life, 
and still more, that death will not end all, but that life and 
personality remain though the clothing of the body be gone? 

Another line of evidence is afforded by the records of appa- 
ritions at the moment of death. The cautiously expressed but 
decisive conclusion was arrived at after prolonged investigation 
by Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick and others, that between 
deaths, and apparitions of the dying or deceased person, a 
connection exists not due to chance alone. A recent case of 
a veridical, or truth-telling phantasm, appearing for some time 
after death, which I have carefully investigated, and know 
the percipient, is so impressive and convincing I will briefly 
narrate the facts. 

A gentleman of some note shot himself in London, in the 
spring of 1907. There can be little doubt that his mind was 
unhinged at the time by the receipt that morning of a letter 
from a young lady that blighted his hopes. Before taking 
his life he scribbled a memorandum leaving an annuity to a 



290 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

young lady who was his godchild, and to whom he was much 
attached. Three days afterward (on the day of his funeral) 
he appeared to this godchild, who was being educated in a 
convent school on the Continent, informing her of the fact of 
his sudden death, of its manner, and of the cause which had 
led him to take his life, and asking her to pray for him. The 
mother, anxious to conceal from her daughter the distressing 
circumstances of her godfather's death, waited to write until 
a few days AFTER the funeral, and then only stated that her 
uncle (as he was called) had died suddenly. Subsequently, 
upon meeting her daughter, on her return from the Continent, 
the mother was amazed to hear not only of the apparition, 
but that it had communicated to her daughter all the cir- 
cumstances which she had never intended her daughter to 
know. Careful inquiry shows that it was impossible for the 
information to have reached her daughter through normal 
means, for the percipient was not only secluded in a convent, 
but the regulations were so strict that no newspaper or other 
sources of news were allowed into the convent, even had the 
facts been published at the time, which was not the case. 
Even letters to the pupils are restricted and supervised. 

—Professor William Barrett, F.R.S. 




¥ 






Leor 



Pipe 



Arlington, Mass. 



Most^famous of all spirit-writing mediums, and never detected 
fraud. She has been the means of converting to spiritualism many 
the most prominent English and American investigators. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE PIPER CASE 

The case of Mrs. Leonora F. Piper, of Arlington, 
Mass., is as preeminent in the field of psychical me- 
diumship as that of D. D. Home in physical medium- 
ship, and for the same reason — she has never once been 
detected in or suspected of fraud. 

It is not that the phenomena observed with Mrs. 
Piper are of a particularly striking nature; a seance 
with her compared with one with Home, for example, 
would probably seem distinctly "slow." But for a 
quarter of a century Mrs. Piper has been under the 
continuous and strict surveillance of the Society for 
Psychical Research ; she has been subject to the closest 
scientific observation ; the data secured with her is 
more voluminous and evidential than with any other 
medium; and she, more than any other, has been the 
means of converting to the spiritualistic hypothesis 
nearly all the prominent investigators of psychic phe- 
nomena. 

Of the genuineness of Mrs. Piper's messages, as dis- 
tinguished from their authenticity, there can be no 
doubt. That is, she herself is honest in her belief in 
their supernormal origin; whatever may be the truth 
of that contention. Every one who has made anything 
more than the most superficial investigation of her me- 
291 



292 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

diumistic powers is convinced at least of the entire 
absence of fraud. Dr. Hyslop, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir 
William Crookes, all assert their strong faith in the 
genuineness of the phenomena exhibited. Dr. Hodg- 
son, ever strongly skeptical, who was sent to this coun- 
try by the English Society for Psychical Research for 
the avowed purpose of revealing whatever duplicity 
there was, came, saw, but, unlike Caesar, was con- 
quered, and converted to spiritualism. Professor 
James, as early as 1885, wrote he was "persuaded of 
the medium's honesty and of the genuineness of her 
trance, and altho at first disposed to think that the 'hits' 
she made were either lucky coincidences, or the result 
of knowledge on her part of who the sitter was, and of 
his or her family affairs, I now believe her to be in 
possession of a power as yet unexplained." 1 Some- 
what later, "Professor Charles Eliot Norton, of Har- 
vard University, had two sittings. He could not re- 
port anything indubitably supernormal. But he said 
that 'there was no question as to Mrs. Piper's good 
faith.' " 2 

Frederic Myers writes in a similar manner. "On 
the whole, I believe that all observers, both in America 
and in England, who have seen enough of Mrs. Piper 
in both states to be able to form a judgment, will agree 
in affirming (1) that many of the facts given could 
not have been learned even by a skilled detective; (2) 
that to learn others of them, altho possible, would have 
needed an expenditure of money as well as of time, 
which it seems impossible to suppose that Mrs. Piper 



Quoted in Bruce : Riddle of Personality, pp. 127- 
2 Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 210. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 293 

could have met; and (3) that her conduct has never 
given any ground whatever for supposing her capable 
of fraud or trickery. Few persons have been so long 
and so carefully observed ; and she has left on all ob- 
servers the impression of thoro uprightness, candor 
and honesty." 1 

The reality of the trance state has been determined 
conclusively, so far as experimental test can do so. 
"Mrs. Piper goes into a 'trance' whose nature we do 
not know," says Dr. Hyslop, "except that it involves 
the suspension of her normal consciousness, and in 
this condition the alleged messages from discarnate 
spirits are written visibly by her own hand. Her head 
lies upon a pillow placed upon a table, and is turned 
away from the writing. The tests for anesthesia, or 
her unconscious state, were exceptionally severe, and 
such as are never employed by physicians to ascertain 
a similar condition. The writing does not present any 
special mystery to the scientific mind, as it is familiar 
with automatic work of this kind where there is no pre- 
tense or evidence of. discarnate intervention. It is the 
contents of the 'messages' that suggest some extraordi- 
nary origin, at least simulative of spiritistic communi- 
cations." 2 

As Dr. Hyslop notes in his analysis of the Piper 
case, the alleged fraud may take many forms. Infor- 
mation may be given unconsciously by the sitters in 
answer to clever "fishing" by the medium; or even 
mere intonations of the voice. Detectives may be em- 
ployed to gather advance information regarding sit- 

1 S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 6, pp. 436-42. 
'Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 131. 



294? ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

ters. Sleight-of-hand tricks of various kinds may ac- 
count for much "supernatural" knowledge, and shrewd 
guessing and a keen study of human nature for more. 

Yet not only those scientists already quoted, but also 
Mrs. Sidgwick, 1 Mr. Frank Podmore, 2 Mr. Andrew 
Lang, 3 Professor Richet, and practically every investi- 
gator present at one of Mrs. Piper's sittings, refuses 
to consider fraud a sufficient explanation of the re- 
markable results obtained. 

Dr. Hyslop goes so far as to say: "In the phe- 
nomena, however, which I have summarized in this 
book, and in the cases concerned, I do not propose to 
discuss the hypothesis of fraud. I consider that it has 
been excluded from consideration as long ago as 1889, 
and I think that every intelligent person who examines 
the facts carefully, and in their details, will not be 
willing to accept the responsibility which his theory of 
fraud will impose upon him for its assertion." 4 And 
Mr. Carrington adds : 5 "The more we study the case, 
the more are we convinced that there cannot possibly 
be any system of fraud that would account for it. Were 
all the mediums in the United States to combine their 
information for the exclusive use of Mrs. Piper, and 
were she to conduct an elaborate system of private 
and paid inquiry herself, that would not begin to ac- 
count for many of the incidents that have transpired 
at the Piper seances, or for the case as a whole." 

I shall now run over as briefly as I may the psychic 

*S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 15, pp. 16-38. 

2 Ibid., v. 14, pp. 50-78. Hbid., v. 15, pp. 39-52. 

4 Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 247. 

"Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 413. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 295 

history of this remarkable medium, illustrating the ac- 
count with typical bits of the recorded phenomena. 

The Early Phases of the Piper Case 

Perhaps the first scientist to give serious considera- 
tion to Mrs. Piper was William James, Professor of 
Psychology at Harvard University. He thus relates 
the impression created by his first sittings with her, and 
the messages given him therein : "The most convin- 
cing things said about my own immediate household 
were either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortu- 
nately, the former things cannot well be published. Of 
the trivial things, I have forgotten the greater num- 
ber, but the following rarce nantes may serve as sam- 
ples of their class. She said that we had lost recently 
a rug and I a waistcoat. (She wrongly accused a per- 
son of stealing the rug, which was afterward found in 
the house.) She told of my killing a gray-and- white 
cat with ether, and described how it had 'spun round 
and round' before dying. She told how my New York 
aunt had written a letter to my wife warning her 
against ail mediums, and then went on a most amusing 
criticism, full of traits vifs, of the excellent woman's 
character. (Of course, no one but my wife and I 
knew of the existence of the letter in question.) She 
was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave 
striking advice during our first visit to her about the 
way to deal with certain 'tantrums' of our second child, 
'little Billy-boy,' as she called him, reproducing his nur- 
sery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, 
how a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how 
my wife had heard footsteps on the stairs, etc. Insig- 
nificant as these things sound when read, the accumu- 



296 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

lation of a large number of them has an irresistible 
effect" 1 

At another time he says : "I was told by Mrs. Piper 
that the spirit of a boy named Robert F. was the com- 
panion of my lost infant. The F.'s were cousins of 
my wife, living in a distant city. On my return home 
I mentioned the incident to my wife, saying, 'Your 
cousin did lose a baby, didn't she? But Mrs. Piper 
was wrong about its sex, name and age.' I then 
learned that Mrs. Piper had been quite right in all 
those particulars, and that mine was the wrong im- 
pression." 2 

Such a report as this, coming from a scientist as emi- 
nent as Professor James, excited, of course, much com- 
ment and interest among the members of the Society 
for Psychical Research, and finally Dr. Hodgson, who 
had already won a name for himself in the detection 
of "psychic" fraud, was commissioned to investigate 
Mrs. Piper. 

We have already noted the result. Detectives em- 
ployed by him to shadow the medium and her family 
gave negative results ; and his own efforts to discover 
fraud were unavailing. 

"My . . . knowledge of Mrs. Piper," says Dr. 
Hodgson in his own account of the first investiga- 
tion, "began in May, 1887, about a fortnight after my 
arrival in Boston, and my first appointment for a sit- 
ting was made by Professor William James. 

"I had several sittings myself with Mrs. Piper, at 
which much intimate knowledge, some of it personal, 



Quoted in Funk : The Widow's Mite, p. 102. 
2 Ibid., p. 245. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 29T 

was shown of deceased friends or relatives of mine; 
and I made appointments for sittings for at least fifty 
persons whom I believed to be strangers to Mrs. Piper, 
taking the utmost precautions to prevent her obtaining 
any information beforehand as to who the sitters were 
to be. The general result was the same as in my own 
case. Most of these persons were told facts thru the 
trance utterance which they felt sure could not have 
become known to Mrs. Piper by ordinary means. . . . 
My own conclusion was that — after allowing the wid- 
est possible margin for information obtainable under 
the circumstances by ordinary means, for chance coin- 
cidence and remarkable guessing, aided by clues given 
consciously and unconsciously by the sitters, and 
helped out by supposed hyperesthesia on the part of 
Mrs. Piper — there remained a large residuum of 
knowledge displayed in her trance state which could 
not be accounted for except on the hypothesis that she 
had some supernormal power ; and this conviction has 
been strengthened by later investigations." 1 

Mrs. Piper's chief "control" at this period was the 
spirit of a French physician named "Phinuit" (pro- 
nounced Finn-wee). His whole name, he said, was 
"Dr. Jean Phinuit Scliville," but "they always called 
me 'Dr. Phinuit.' " 

"He was unable to tell the year of his birth or the 
year of his death," says Dr. Hodgson, "but by putting 
together several of his statements, it would appear that 
he was born about 1790, and died about i860. He was 
born in Marseilles, went to school and studied medi- 
cine at a college called 'Merciana' (?) College, where 

1 Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 116-18. 



298 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

he took his degree when he was between twenty-five 
and twenty-eight years old. He also studied medicine 
at 'Metz, in Germany.' At the age of thirty-five he 
married Marie Latimer, who had a sister named Jose- 
phine. Marie was thirty years of age when he married 
her, and died when she was about fifty. He had no 
children. 

"He mentioned the 'Hospital of God,' or 'Hospital 
de Dieu' (Hotel Dieu)," adds Dr. Hyslop, "and re- 
ferred to Dupuytren and Bovier, the former of whom 
is known to have been a distinguished French physi- 
cian and surgeon, who was born in 1777 and died in 
1835. But there were contradictions in Phinuit's story 
of himself, and in addition to this, inquiries as to the 
existence of any such person in France did not con- 
firm the story in a single detail. The consequence was 
that he has always been treated, and must be treated, 
in the discussion of these phenomena, as a secondary 
personality of Mrs. Piper. But on any theory, he is 
the central psychological phenomenon of the case for 
the apparent management of it in its early history." 1 

Commenting on this Phinuit "control," Professor 
James said: 

"The most remarkable thing about the Phinuit per- 
sonality seems to me the extraordinary tenacity and 
minuteness of his memory. The medium has been vis- 
ited by many hundreds of sitters, half of them, per- 
haps, being strangers, who have come but once. To 
each, Phinuit gives an hour full of disconnected frag- 
ments of talk about persons living, dead, or imaginary, 
and events past, future, or unreal. What normal wak- 



^yslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 124-5. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 299 

ing memory could keep this chaotic mass of stuff to- 
gether ? Yet Phinuit does so ; for the chances seem to 
be that if a sitter should go back after years of inter- 
val, the medium, when once entranced, would recall 
the minutest incidents of the earlier interview, and be- 
gin by recapitulating much of what had then been said. 
So far as I can discover, Mrs. Piper's waking mem- 
ory is not remarkable, and the whole constitution of 
her trance memory is something which I am at a loss 
to understand." 1 

Mrs. Piper is Investigated in England 

After an exhaustive investigation, Dr. Hodgson an- 
nounced himself, if not convinced, at least extremely 
puzzled, and recommended that Mrs. Piper allow fur- 
ther study of her case directly by the Society for Psy- 
chical Research. She agreed, and went to England; 
elaborate precautions being taken by Sir Oliver Lodge 
and others who had her in charge to prevent her gain- 
ing any information regarding prospective sitters. 
Here are some of his statements regarding what was 
done to obviate fraud: 

"Mrs. Piper's correspondence was small, something 
like three letters a week, even when the children were 
away from her. The outsides of her letters nearly al- 
ways passed through my hands, and often the insides, 
too, by her permission. 

"The servants were all, as it happened, new. . . . 
Consequently, they were entirely ignorant of family 
connections, and could have told nothing, however 
largely they had been paid. 



'Quoted in Funk: The Widoixfs Mite, p. 244. 



300 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

"The ingenious suggestion has been made that they 
were her spies. Knowing the facts, I will content my- 
self with asserting that they had absolutely no connec- 
tion with her of any sort. . . . 

"In order to give better evidence, I obtained per- 
mission, and immediately thereafter personally over- 
hauled the whole of her luggage. Directories, biogra- 
phies, 'Men of Our Time,' and such-like books, were 
entirely absent. In fact, there were scarcely any books 
at all. 

"The eldest child at home was aged nine, and the 
utmost of information at his disposal was fairly well 
known to us. My wife was skeptically inclined, and 
was guarded in her utterances, and tho a few slips 
could hardly be avoided — and one or two of these 
were rather unlucky ones — they were noted and re- 
corded. 

"Strange sitters frequently arrived at n A.M., and 
I admitted them myself straight into the room where 
we were going to sit ; they were shortly afterward in- 
troduced to Mrs. Piper under some assumed name. 

"The whole attitude of Mrs. Piper was natural, un- 
inquisitive, ladylike, and straightforward. . . . 

"Her whole demeanor struck every one who became 
intimate with her as utterly beyond and above sus- 
picion." 1 

"These statements illustrate the kind of precautions 
generally taken during the history of the Piper ex- 
periments. . . . The whole burden of proof now rests 
upon the man who persists in irresponsible talk and 



a Quoted by Hyslop in Science and the Future Life, pp. 119* 
121. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 301 

suspicion of fraud. I say boldly that no intelligent 
man, whether scientific or otherwise, would any longer 
advance such an hypothesis without giving specific evi- 
dence that it is a fact rather than an imaginary possi- 
bility." 1 

Seances, often two a day, were held for several 
weeks; and tho some were almost complete failures, 
others were marked with conspicuous success. "True 
incidents were often given in such a mass of error as 
to make it necessary to discount their value. Some 
sittings . . . have all the appearance of the ordinary 
medium's talk and associational reproductions. Names 
were often given in a manner to suggest guessing and 
'fishing,' and even tho they were strikingly right, their 
significance had to be skeptically received or wholly 
rejected." 2 

Myers speaks in almost the same terms : " Thinuit' 
— to use his own appellation, for brevity's sake — is by 
no means above 'fishing.' . . . There were some inter- 
views thruout which Phinuit hardly asked any ques- 
tions, and hardly stated anything which was not true. 
There were others thruout which his utterances showed 
not one glimpse of real knowledge, but consisted wholly 
of fishing questions and random assertions." 3 

One of the most complete failures was the sitting 
with Professor Macalister. "He spoke of the failure 
in strong and uncomplimentary language. He thought 
it a case of hystero-epilepsy, and that Mrs. Piper was 
wide enough awake to profit by suggestion." 4 



^yslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 121. 

2 Ibid., p. 163. 

'Quoted in Funk : The Widow's Mite, p. 250. 

4 See Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, pp. 163-4. 



302 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

But on the other hand, thousands of items were 
given which by no possible explanation could have 
been known to the medium ; her successes were as fre- 
quent and more striking than her failures. For ex- 
ample, in one of the first sittings Mrs. Lodge asked 
Phinuit to tell her something of her father, who died 
when she was but two weeks old. Several highly in- 
teresting but not conclusive remarks were made ; then 
Phinuit gave this very remarkable "message" : " 'He 
had an illness and passed out with it. He tried to 
speak to Mary, his wife, and stretched out his hand 
to her, but couldn't reach, and fell, and passed away. 
That's the last thing he remembers in this mortal body.' 
He added a statement about taking some medicine, the 
last he took, and then that something had happened to 
his right leg and it was caused by a fall, affecting the 
leg below the knee. It was also stated that it gave him 
pain at times. 

"The facts were that Mrs. Lodge's father had his 
health broken by tropical travel and yellow fever, and 
his heart was weak. A severe illness of his wife was 
a great strain on him. As she was recuperating he 
entered her room one day, quite faint, half dressed, 
and holding a handkerchief to his mouth, which was 
full of blood. 'He stretched out his hand to her, re- 
moved the handkerchief and tried to speak, but only 
gasped and fell on the floor. Very soon he died.' He 
had broken his leg below the knee once by falling 
down the hold, and in certain states of the weather it 
afterward pained him. 

"Phinuit made the further statement that he had had 
trouble with his teeth ; that he wore a sort of uniform 
with 'big, bright buttons'; that he traveled a good 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 303 

deal. ... A little later it was intimated that he was 
a captain. The facts were that during his married 
life he had been troubled much with toothache; his 
position was that of captain in the merchant service ; he 
traveled a great deal as a consequence, though his 
travel was mentioned before the statement was made 
that he was a captain." 1 

Another sitting, held later, with Miss Goodrich- 
Freer, author of Essays in Psychical Research, was 
especially successful. "You see flowers sometimes?" 
asks Phinuit. "(What is my favorite flower? There 
is a spirit who would know.) Tansies. No, delicate 
pink roses. You have them about you, spiritually as 
well as physically.' Miss X. has, on a certain day every 
month, a present of delicate pink roses. She frequently 
has hallucinatory visions of flowers. 2 

" 'There is an old lady in the spirit,' continues 
Phinuit, 'wearing a cap, who is fond of you — your 
grandmother. She is*the mother of the clergyman's 
wife's mother. (Not correct.) She wears a lace col- 
lar and a big brooch ; bluish-gray eyes, dark hair turned 
grayish, with a black ribbon running thru it; rather 
prominent nose and peaked chin ; named Anne.' This 
is a correct description of a friend of Miss X., whom 
she was in the habit of calling 'Granny.' " 3 

Unable to discover fraud, but equally certain that 
the evidence for out-and-out spiritualism afforded by 
Mrs. Piper was still inconclusive, the Society for Psy- 
chical Research reserved final decision, in the meantime 
delegating Dr. Hodgson to continue his investigation 



^yslop : Science and the Future Life, pp. 140-2. 
Hbid., pp. 159-61. Hbid., p. 161. 



304. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

of her in this country. Mrs. Piper's sittings with Dr. 
Hodgson, both the first and second series, were among 
the most remarkable held, being very rich in evidential 
data. 

In considering the first series, "it should be remem- 
bered that he was a native of Australia, graduated at 
the University of Melbourne, and afterward came to 
England, where he had been Lecturer at Cambridge 
University before he was sent to India to investigate 
Madame Blavatsky. He had come to this country for 
the first time about a fortnight before his first sitting 
with Mrs. Piper." 

The Appearance of the Pelham "Control" 
Shortly after Mrs. Piper's English visit there oc- 
curred a most extraordinary change in her "control." 
Dr. Hodgson had had a friend, a young man, unmar- 
ried, and known in the records of the Society, out of 
consideration of the feelings of his surviving relatives, 
as "George Pelham." A lawyer and author, a native 
of Boston, but for several years resident in New York, 
he had joined the Society for Psychical Research. "His 
interest . . . was explicable rather by an intellectual 
openness and fearlessness characteristic of him, than 
by any tendency to believe in supernormal phenomena. 
. . . We had several long talks together on philosophic 
subjects," says Dr. Hodgson, "and one very long dis- 
cussion, probably at least two years before his death, 
on the possibility of a 'future life/ In this he main- 
tained that in accordance with a fundamental philo- 
sophic theory which we both accepted, a 'future life' 
was not only incredible, but inconceivable. At the con- 




Dr. Richard Hodgson 

He was one of the most enthusiastic investigators in psychical 
research. This photograph, reproduced from Mr. Carrington's "Physi- 
cal Phenomena of Spiritualism," Dr. Hodgson had taken to show that 
a face may be made to appear over jewelry, as the result of fraudulent 
manipulation of the plates, a thing which spiritualists have frequently 
asserted impossible, 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 305 

elusion of the discussion he admitted that a future life 
was conceivable, but he did not accept its credibility, 
and vowed that if he should die before I did, and found 
himself 'still existing,' he would 'make things lively' 
in the effort to reveal the fact of his continued exist- 
ence." 1 

In the early part of 1892 "George Pelham" was 
killed accidentally and very suddenly. About a month 
afterward Dr. Hodgson was present at a sitting, with 
another friend of George Pelham's, when Phinuit 
spoke the latter's full name, and said that he was pres- 
ent and desired to communicate. 

At this and succeeding seances, George Pelham gave 
numerous proofs of his identity, recalling incidents un- 
known to any of his hearers, but afterward verified; 
in short, gave what Phinuit himself had never been 
able to give, seemingly conclusive evidence that he was 
indeed the spirit he pretended to be. 

Pelham at once began to assume the functions of 
a "control," Phinuit being gradually pushed into the 
background. Unlike Phinuit, whose messages had al- 
ways been spoken, Pelham transmitted his in writing, 
which made possible, of course, a much more perfect 
record. At times both "controls" communicated at 
once, Mrs. Piper speaking Phinuit's message and writ- 
ing Pelham's simultaneously. With Pelham's advent, 
Mrs. Piper's mediumship took on a newer and im- 
proved stage. Phinuit was always a bit of a rascal, 
and something of a faker ; but now the communica- 
tions became in every way more definite and correct. 

With Pelham Dr. Hodgson made interesting ex- 



'Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 127. 



306 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

periments of various kinds, some of which seem re- 
markably conclusive ; for example, sending Pelham "in 
the spirit" somewhere to see what a designated person 
was doing, and later verifying the information thus 
obtained. 

For example: "George Pelham was asked to go 
away and watch the Howards, and report. Before the 
sitting ended George Pelham returned, and thru Phin- 
uit said: 'She's writing, and taken some violets and 
put them in a book. And it looks as if she's writing 
that to my mother. Who's Tyson . . . Davis ? I saw 
her sitting before a little desk or table. Took little 
book, opened it, wrote letter he thinks to his mother. 
Saw her take a little bag and put some things in it 
belonging to him; placed the photograph beside her 
on the desk. That's hers. Sent a letter to Tyson. 
She hunted a little while for her picture, sketching. 
He's certain that the letter is to his mother. She took 
one of George's books and turned it over and said: 
"George, are you here ? Do you see that ?" These were 
the very words. Then she turned and went up a short 
flight of stairs. Took some things from a drawer, 
came back, sat down to the desk, and then finished 
the letter/ Davis was the name of Mrs. Tyson's 
father. 

"Of this set of 'communications,' Dr. Hodgson says : 
'The statements made as to what Mrs. Howard was 
doing at the time were not one of them correct as re- 
gards the particular time, tho they seem to indi- 
cate a knowledge of Mrs. Howard's actions during 
the previous day and a half, as appears from the fol- 
lowing statements made in a letter to Dr. Hodgson 
by Mrs. Howard: 



'ARE THE DEAD SLIVE? 307 

" ' 'I did none of those things to-day, but all of them 
yesterday afternoon and the evening before. 

" 'Yesterday afternoon I wrote a note to Mrs. Tyson 
declining an invitation to lunch; this I did at a little 
table. Later I wrote to his mother at a desk, and see- 
ing George's violets by me, in their envelope, gave 
them to my daughter to put in my drawer, not "into a 
book." This is the only inaccuracy of detail. The day 
before I also wrote to his mother, putting his photo- 
graph before me on the table while I was writing. Did 
"hunt for my picture," my painting of him. What he 
says about the book is also true, tho I can't tell at 
precisely what time I did it, as I was alone at the time. 
In all other matters my memory is corroborated by 
my daughter, who took the note to Mrs. T.'s, and saw 
me put photo before me on the desk. 

" 'While writing to his mother I did "go and take 
things from a drawer, came back again, sat down to 
the desk, and then finished the letter." This was the 
letter finished at the desk, not the one written at a 
table.' 

"The extraordinarily interesting feature of this ex- 
periment is the disparity in time between the facts ex- 
pected and the facts obtained, the past and not the 
present seeming to have been cognized." 1 

Pelham is Displaced by the Imperator "Controls " 

In 1898 Dr. Hodgson published a second report on 
the Piper case. In the six years that had elapsed since 
the first he had made long and careful experimenta- 
tion. Almost simultaneous with his first report had 



l Quoted in Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, pp. 197-9. 



308 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

occurred the first significant change of "controls." 
Shortly previous to the second occurred a second 
change. A new group of "controls" appeared, no 
other than W. Stainton Moses, the English medium, 
and a little later the "Rector," "Imperator," and "Doc- 
tor" group that we have already noticed as being his 
most important "controls." Phinuit had for some time 
ceased to appear ; now Pelham was displaced as chief 
control, and "Imperator" took full charge of the 
"spirit" side of the case. Dr. Hodgson consulted with 
him as he might with any other associate regarding 
the various details of the seances held and experiments 
tried. " 'Imperator' claimed that the indiscriminate ex- 
perimenting with Mrs. Piper's organism should stop, 
that it was a 'battered and worn' machine, and needed 
much repairing; that 'he,' with his 'assistants,' 'Doctor,' 
etc., would repair it as far as possible, and that in the 
meantime other persons must be kept away. I then 
for the first time," says Dr. Hodgson, "explained to 
the normal Mrs. Piper about W..S. Moses and his al- 
leged relation to 'Imperator/ and she was willing to 
follow my advice and try this new experiment." 1 His 
advice was followed, and the wisdom of this course 
appeared to be justified by an again increased excel- 
lence of the messages received, in clearness, accuracy 
and literary quality. "Those who had sittings in pre- 
vious years, and who have been present since the 
change which I have described, were all struck by the 
improvement in the clearness and coherence of the 
communications." 2 



Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 129. 
'Ibid., p. 130. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 309 

In fact, by 1898, so strong- was the evidence for the 
future life by this time collected, that Dr. Hodgson, 
in his second report, felt compelled to come out defi- 
nitely a believer in spirits. 

At about this time a new investigator became inter- 
ested in Mrs. Piper, Dr. Hyslop, then Professor of 
Philosophy at Columbia University. Cooperating with 
Dr. Hodgson, he held numerous sittings during the 
following two years. At the beginning of his inquiry 
every effort was made to conceal his real identity from 
the medium. "Driving to her residence in a closed 
carriage, he donned a mask before entering her pres- 
ence, was introduced to her as 'Mr. Smith,' and while 
she was in her normal state maintained complete si- 
lence. From the outset he obtained messages that 
left him in a state of bewilderment, relating as they 
did to occurrences transpiring years earlier, in connec- 
tion with the careers of dead relatives and friends." 1 
A number of instances of these messages will be given 
in the succeeding article. Sufficient here to state that 
in the end Dr. Hyslop, like Dr. Hodgson, became con- 
vinced of their genuinely spiritual origin. 

I have given one or two examples of prophecy 
among those quoted. The record has many more, how- 
ever, some much more complex and remarkable. Here 
is another simple instance, quoted by Dr. Hyslop: 
"Miss W. says: Tn the spring of 1888, an acquaint- 
ance, S., was suffering torturing disease. There was 
no hope of relief, and only distant prospect of release. 
A consultation of physicians predicted continued phys- 

*See Bruce: The Riddle of Personality, p. 133. 



310 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

ical suffering and probably mental decay, continuing 
perhaps thru a series of years. S.'s daughter, worn 
with anxiety and care, was in danger of breaking in 
health. "How can I get her away for a little rest?" I 
asked Dr. Phinuit, May 24, 1888. "She will not leave 
her father," was the reply, "but his suffering is not for 
long. The doctors are wrong about that. There will 
be a change soon, and he will pass out of the body be- 
fore the summer is over." His death occurred in 
June, 1888.' "* 

Phinuit and the other controls were oftentimes asked 
for information unknown to the questioner, as, for 
example, the location of lost articles. Sometimes he 
was able to tell ; sometimes he was not. Certain of 
these failures are as interesting from a psychical stand- 
point as successes would have been. 

"March 2, 1887, I was asked by my mother to in- 
quire the whereabouts of two silver cups, heirlooms, 
which she had misplaced. Said Dr. Phinuit, 'They are 
in your house, in a room higher up than your sleeping- 
room, in what looks to me the back part of the house, 
but very likely I am turned around. You'll find there 
a large chest filled with clothing, and at the very bot- 
tom of the chest are the cups. Annie (my mother's 
name) placed them there, and will remember it.' Re- 
turning home, I went to the room on the third floor, at 
the front of the house, but remotest from the stairway, 
found the chest (of which I knew) and the contents 
(of which I was ignorant) both as described, but no 
silver. Reporting the message to my mother, I learned 



Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 172. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 311 

that she had at one time kept the cups in that chest, 
but more recently had removed them." 1 

But one more fact is needed to bring the history of 
the Piper case down to date. Shortly after Dr. Hys- 
lop's connection with the case, psychical research 
seemed to have lost one of its most valued and enthusi- 
astic workers by the death of Dr. Hodgson. But with- 
in a few months, behold the "spirit" of Dr. Hodgson 
himself appearing as a "control" of Mrs. Piper. And 
as a fact, he seems now to have ousted both "Pelham" 
and the "Imperator" group ; and directs the spirit side 
of this unique system of communication in quite as 
masterly a manner as he directed our side when in 
the body. Knowing exactly the kind of proof of his 
spiritual existence desired by his old associates, he 
has done his best to supply it, and with such success 
that Dr. Hyslop now seems absolutely certain of spirit 
communication, and the other scientific men who are 
studying the case are either genuinely puzzled or on 
the verge of conviction. 

Such is Mrs. Piper's psychic history as a conserva- 
tive spiritualist might relate it, a life story certainly 
unique in human experience. Is it true? That is the 
great question. We have messages, that is certain ; but 
where do they come from? We have facts; that is 
unquestioned; but what is the explanation of them? 
If "spirits" do not control Mrs. Piper, who or what 
does? Let us see. 



Quoted in Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 168. 



"PSYCHICAL RESEARCH HAS BRIDGED THE CHASM" 

"No part of the unclassified residuum [of human knowledge] 
has usually been treated with a more contemptuous scientific 
disregard than the mass of phenomena generally called mysti- 
cal. Physiology will have nothing to do with them. Orthodox 
psychology turns its back upon them. Medicine sweeps them 
out, or at most, when in an anecdotal vein, records a few of 
them as "effects of the imagination," a phrase of mere dis- 
missal, whose meaning, in this connection, it is impossible to 
make precise. All the while, however, the phenomena are 
there, lying broadcast over the surface of history. No matter 
where you open its pages, you find things recorded under the 
name of divinations, inspirations, demoniacal possessions, ap- 
paritions, trances, ecstasies, miraculous healings and produc- 
tions of disease, and occult powers possessed by peculiar indi- 
viduals over persons and things in their neighborhood. We 
suppose that "mediumship" originated in Rochester, N. Y., 
and animal magnetism with Mesmer; but once look behind 
the pages of official history, in personal memoirs, legal docu- 
ments, and popular narratives and books of anecdotes, and 
you will find that there was never a time when these things 
were not reported just as abundantly as now. . . . 

"I have myself . . . collected hundreds of cases of hallu- 
cination in healthy persons. The result is to make me feel 
that we all have potentially a "subliminal" self, which may 
make at any time irruption into our ordinary lives. At its 
lowest, it is only the depository of our forgotten memories; at 
its highest, we do not know what it is at all. Take, for in- 
stance, a series of cases. During sleep, many persons have 
something in them which measures the flight of time better 
than the waking self does. It wakes them at a pre-appointed 
hour; it acquaints them with the moment when they first 
313 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 313 

awake. It may produce an hallucination, as in a lady who 
informs me that at the instant of waking she has a vision of 
a watch-face with the hands pointing (as she has often veri- 
fied) to the exact time. It may be a feeling that some physio- 
logical period has elapsed; but, whatever it is, it is sub- 
conscious. 

"A subconscious something may also preserve experiences to 
which we do not openly attend. A lady taking her lunch in 
town finds herself without her purse. Instantly a sense comes 
over her of rising from the breakfast-table and hearing her 
purse drop upon the floor. On reaching home she finds noth- 
ing under the table, but summons the servant to say where 
she has put the purse. The servant produces it, saying: 
"How did you know where it was? You rose and left the 
room as though you didn't know you had dropped it." 

"The same subconscious something may recollect what we 
have forgotten. A lady accustomed to taking salicylate of 
soda for muscular rheumatism wakes one early winter morn- 
ing with an aching neck. In the twilight she takes what she 
supposes is her customary powder from a drawer, dissolves it 
in a glass of water, and is about to drink it down, when she 
feels a sharp slap on her shoulder and hears a voice in her 
ear saying: "Taste it!" On examination she finds she has got 
a morphine powder by mistake. The natural interpretation 
is that a sleeping memory of the morphine powders awoke in 
this quasi-explosive way. 

"A like explanation offers itself as most plausible for the 
following case. A lady with a little time to catch the train, 
and the expressman about to call, is excitedly looking for the 
lost key of a packed trunk. Hurrying upstairs with a bunch of 
keys, proved useless, in her hand, she hears an "objective" 
voice say distinctly, "Try the key of the cake-box." Being 
tried, it fits. This also may well have been a case of for- 
gotten experience. 

"Now the effect is doubtless due to the same hallucinatory 
mechanism; but the source is less easily assigned as we ascend 
the scale of cases. A lady, for instance, goes after breakfast 
to see about one of her servants who has become ill over 
night. She is startled at distinctly reading over the bedroom 



314 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

door in gilt letters the word "smallpox." The doctor is sent 
for, and ere long pronounces smallpox to be the disease, al- 
though the lady says, "The thought of the girl having small- 
pox never entered my mind till I saw the apparent inscrip- 
tion." Then come other cases of warning, for example, that 
of a youth sitting in a wagon under a shed, who suddenly 
hears his dead mother's voice say, "Stephen, get away from 
here quick!" and jumps out just in time to see the shed roof 
fall. . . . 

"It is the intolerance of science for such phenomena, her 
peremptory denial either of their existence or of their sig- 
nificance (except as proofs of man's absolute innate folly), that 
has set science so far apart from the common sympathies of the 
race. I confess that it is on this, its humanizing mission, that 
the society's (the S. P. R.) best claim to the gratitude of our 
generation seems to depend. It has restored continuity to 
history. It has shown some reasonable basis for the super- 
stitious aberrations of the foretime. It has bridged the chasm, 
healed the hideous rift that science, taken in a certain narrow 
way, has shot into the human world." 

— Professor William James. 

—[From "The Will to Believe."] 



CHAPTER XIV 
TELEPATHY vs. SPIRITUALISM 

I have outlined the most famous case in the history 
of spiritualism. Now, what of it? What does it 
amount to? 

What tests shall we impose upon alleged spirit mes- 
sages which shall seem to afford proof of their authen- 
ticity ? Here is the medium, lying in a trance, with her 
hand nervously traveling across a sheet of paper and 
inscribing thereon statements that claim to come from 
intelligences in another world. They write coherently ; 
answer questions; apparently make every effort, so 
far as they can in writing, to have us believe the 
writing is what they say it is. How are we to know ? 

We have two very strong, if not conclusive tests : 

1. The writing must give us information which ap- 
parently could not be obtained thru any but a super- 
normal source. 

2. The facts given must in some way prove the 
personal identity of the sender. 

Let me be more specific. To take up the first ques- 
tion, what information will prove for these "messages" 
a supernormal origin? At first blush we might say: 
"Let the spirit tell us something about itself, about 
what death is, about what 'heaven' is like, the condi- 
tions existing there in the realm where it is. That is 
315 



316 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

surely something no one on earth would know." Yes, 
very true. 

But even supposing, as will be explained later, that 
the spirit could tell us these things, don't you see no 
one on earth would know, either, whether it was tell- 
ing us the truth or not? The medium herself might 
be making it up, as we say, "out of whole cloth" ; and 
we could not say it was true or false. In other words, 
we must be able to verify the facts obtained. 

I will give an example of what I mean. If the spirit 
gives us a statement about something done by him on 
earth, and surely known to no one else on earth but 
him, and on investigation we find that his statement 
is correct, that seems strong evidence of a supernormal 
origin of the writing, doesn't it? 

There are many such cases in the history of medium- 
ship, carefully attested, and some very striking. 

A man, for instance — and this was a test experiment 
— wrote a short letter, sealing it, and showing it to no 
other living soul. Some months after his death his 
mother received an alleged message from him — this 
time, as it happened, by table-tipping — which spelled 
out the entire contents of this test letter. The letter 
was then unsealed, and its contents found to be exactly 
what the spirit said they were. 

This is but one example out of many, where facts 
were given by the spirits which were known neither 
to the medium, to those present, nor, in fact, to any 
living person ; yet on investigation the facts were found 
to be correct. This would seem rather a stumbling- 
block to the opponent of the spirit theory; we shall 
see later what he has to say. 

In the second place, we said that these spirits must 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 317 

prove their identity. The man in the above case proved 
his, in a way, by telling the contents of that letter that 
he had himself written. Yet the problem of proving 
identity by writing is not as easy as you might at first 
think. Here is one of the older examples of this proof, 
reported by William Stainton Moses : 

"A spirit, who claimed to be an old American sol- 
dier, communicated to him (Mr. Moses himself was 
the medium) at Isle of Wight, England. The spirit 
said that his name was Abraham Florentine, and that 
he fought on the American side in the War of 1812, 
and that he had lately died in Brooklyn, U. S. A., his 
home. He gave his age and his time of service in the 
war. Rev. Stainton Moses declared that he had never 
heard of the existence of such a man, but was so im- 
pressed by the truthfulness of the spirit that he com- 
municated the facts to an English paper, and requested 
American papers to copy. The case was taken up by 
Epes Sargent in America, and hunted down, and it 
was found that all that this spirit said about himself 
was truth." 1 

This seems rather conclusive, doesn't it? But there 
are faults in it, nevertheless, some of which I shall 
point out later. Dr. Hyslop says "the task of proving 
identity ... is a gigantic one," and surely he should 
know. Let us imagine for a moment that you are 
writing to a friend — on a typewriter, let us say, so 
that the question of handwriting does not enter — and 
you wish to prove to him that it is you, John Jones, 
who are writing to him. How shall you do it? You 
would not write about philosophy and death and 



*Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 446. 



318 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

heaven ; if you did, he would say, "That doesn't prove 
to me you are John Jones ; any one could write that." 
But supposing, instead of philosophy, you wrote, "I'll 
show you that I am John Jones : do you remember last 
week, Wednesday, as I was walking in the country 
with you, I reached over and brushed a caterpillar off 
your coat?" "There," your friend will say, "there's 
proof that this is John Jones that is writing. No living 
soul knows about that little incident except the two 
of us — and the caterpillar." 

Now from this you can understand, I think, why we 
find that the surest proof of personal identity is found 
in little, trivial, seemingly unimportant facts. The 
medium might have found out that your father died 
of apoplexy ; but she probably would not know that ten 
years before, in a different city, one afternoon, on the 
front porch, he broke an apple in two for you and 
Johnnie. In other words, this fact, tho trivial, is 
stronger proof than the other that the spirit writer is 
your father. 

We have strong statements of belief like that of 
William T. Stead. "I feel it impossible to resist the 
conclusion that these communications are what they 
profess to be — real letters from the real Julia, who is 
not dead, but gone before. I know, after five years' 
almost daily intercourse with her thru my automatic 
hand, that I am conversing with an intelligence at 
least as keen as my own, a personality as distinctly 
defined, and a friend as true and tender, as I have ever 
known. From those who scout the possibility of such 
a phenomenon I would merely ask the admission that 
in this case their favorite theory of intentional fraud, 
at least on the part of the medium, is excluded by the 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 319 

fact that these messages were written by my own hand, 
no other visible person being present." 

But we have the even stronger evidence of "identity" 
in thousands of trivial incidents like those I have men- 
tioned. Dr. Hyslop says: "In one of my own sit- 
tings the communicator twice exclaimed (so to speak, 
as the message came in automatic writing), 'Give me 
my hat !' just as he left off communicating. This lan- 
guage had no connection with the rest of the com- 
munication, but, strange enough, my inquiries brought 
out accidentally that the communicator, in life, was 
accustomed to use this very expression in situations 
like this, when suddenly called to go outdoors." 1 

Dr. Hyslop also mentions another example occurring 
in a sitting in which an uncle of his claimed to be the 
communicator. "He began with an announcement of 
his name. He said, 'I am James McClellan, and you 
are my namesake.' I was the namesake of this uncle. 
He added, 'I always despised the name of Jim.' This 
I did not know, but I felt the statement was quite prob- 
able, as we always called him 'Uncle Mack.' On in- 
quiry of his two living daughters, one of them did not 
know whether this was true or not. But the other re- 
called it distinctly, and mentioned several instances 
in which her father and mother had endeavored to cor- 
rect the habit of the neighbors of calling him Jim." 2 

Here is an example observed by "Miss W." at an- 
other Piper sitting. "T. was a Western man, and the 
localism of using like as a conjunction clung to him, 
despite my frequent corrections, all his life. At my 



Warper's Magazine, March, 1901. 
'Ibid., June, 1900. 



&20 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

sitting on December 16, 1886, he remarked, 'If you 
could see it like I do.' Forgetful, for the instant, of 
the changed conditions, I promptly repeated, 'As I do.' 
'Ah,' came the response, 'that sounds natural. That 
sounds like old times.' "* 

The "Telepathic Hypothesis" 

We have already hinted that in this explanation of 
the phenomena of mediumship, when we have elimi- 
nated fraud and chance, we are still far from a solu- 
tion of the problem. In fact, our difficulties have but 
just begun. 

But it may well be asked, If these mediumistic mes- 
sages do not come from "spirits," where can they come 
from? What possible other explanation is there for 
them? The spiritualist would certainly seem to have 
his case pretty well proved. Let us see. 

The disbeliever begins by admitting that the medium 
does have messages which she believes are genuine; 
but he denies vigorously that spirits have anything to 
do with them. He believes that they, one and all, are 
evolved unconsciously by the medium's own subliminal 
self. He believes that this subliminal self can also 
unconsciously imitate every phase of personal identity, 
and do it so cunningly and completely as to deceive the 
most expert investigator. He believes that all the al- 
leged "spirit" messages are telepathic in their origin, 
and are explicable simply and solely by telepathy. This 
is why Dr. Hyslop called the task of proving the "per- 
sonal identity" of the spirits a "gigantic one." No 
wonder ! 

Here we have, then, plainly, two theories to which 



'Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 167-8. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 321 

the spiritistic problem has, within the last few years, 
narrowed down — telepathy vs. spiritism. Which is cor- 
rect? 

But plainly, a conception of telepathy broad enough 
to cover mediumistic communications must be some- 
thing more than the telepathy we have so far consid- 
ered. We have, so far, spoken of telepathy, you re- 
member, as the "reading" by some person of what an- 
other person is thinking at the time. All our experi- 
mental proof bears out this simple theory. 

There is some evidence, however, in support (i) 
of a telepathy in which other persons are concerned 
besides simply a sender and percipient; and (2) a sort 
of delayed percipience, in which the percipient is aware, 
not of the thoughts of the agent at that moment, but 
of the thoughts he had hours, or possibly days, or even 
years, before. 

Dr. Hudson is the most enthusiastic advocate of this 
multiple telepathy; that is, telepathy involving more 
than two people ; and he gives the following case as a 
typical example: 

"I once hypnotized a lady, and asked her to de- 
scribe my home, which she knew nothing of. She de- 
scribed everything correctly, even a huge mastiff lying 
on a bearskin rug on the library floor. But doubt was 
thrown upon her lucidity when she described the li- 
brary desk as being covered with a white cloth, and 
said that a lady was sitting at the desk, 'doing some- 
thing' that she could not clearly make out. As my 
desk is covered with a black cloth, and as ladies sel- 
dom work at it, I regarded the description as an effort 
at guessing. But on my return home I learned that 
my wife had been 'doing something' with pulverized 



322 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

sugar, and had covered the table with newspapers. As 
that was the only time in the long history of my library 
desk that it had been so covered, or so employed, I can- 
not ascribe the phenomenon to coincidence." 1 

Now I admit the possibility of multiple telepathy; 
but I confess I fail to see how this is necessarily an 
example of it. We do not need to assume that the 
medium did otherwise than to read directly from Mrs. 
Hudson's mind by simple telepathy. Or another pos- 
sible explanation is that the medium saw the room 
herself, clairvoyantly, telepathy not entering at all. 

In a similar way the "Godfrey case," tho much quot- 
ed, does not seem a typical case of delayed percipi- 
ence, for other factors enter in. This was an instance 
in which a clergyman endeavored, at 10.45 P - M v to pro- 
ject, telepathically, an apparition of himself to a friend. 
His experiment succeeds; but the "ghost" is not seen 
by his friend till 3.30 a.m. This, however, is rather 
an example of self-projection than telepathy ; and to 
discuss it would get us off into still deeper waters. 

In spite, however, of this breakdown of the typical 
examples of each phenomena, most psychic researchers 
admit that there are cases which clearly point to a 
delayed percipience. Perhaps the reader does not grasp 
fully, at first thought, what a wonderful enlargement 
of the powers of telepathy this implies. It means that 
we may unknowingly extract a thought from another 
man's consciousness ; that that man may die ; and then, 
that hours, days, or even years, afterward, that thought 
may flash up from our subliminal self, where it has 



^Myers: Do We Survive 'Death? National Review, Octo- 
ber, 1898. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 323 

lain so long, appearing then to our every-day con- 
sciousness as a veritable "message" from the dead ! 
"For where else could it come from?" you quite natu- 
rally ask. "He is the only one who knew that fact, 
and he died without telling a soul." 

Such a wonderful enlargement of the powers of 
telepathy may seem more incredible to many than even 
a belief in spirits. Yet even the ardent spiritualist must 
admit that other observed telepathic phenomena give 
some ground for the assumption. In any event, the 
possibility renders indefinite what Myers considered 
the final and perfect proof of spiritualism: namely, 
the receipt of a spirit message giving the contents of 
a sealed letter known only to a person who has died. 
And the spiritualist has to admit, too, that probably a 
large portion of alleged spirit messages do have a tel- 
epathic origin. He admits that facts once known to 
the medium — but which, now forgotten, she says with 
perfect honesty she does not know — lie down there in 
her subliminal memory till some chance working of 
the trance state brings them as a bona fide "message." 

Or she may never have known the fact, but it may 
be known to some one present in the company. And 
here again, unknown to the waking consciousness of 
the medium, her subliminal self, in some mysterious 
telepathic way, reaches out and gains that fact from 
the sitter's mind, and the sitter hears it delivered thru 
the entranced lips of the medium as a veritable mes- 
sage from the dead. 

Very wonderful and inexplicable this, you say. and 
hard to believe. Yes ; but is it as wonderful and inex- 
plicable and hard to believe as a message from a person 
in the other world? As a fact> it is to that last ques- 



324 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

tion, or a similar one, that a final analysis of the prob- 
lem finally brings you: which of two things, judging 
the data at hand, do you think more incredible ? Proof 
is here but a relative term. The telepathist has not yet 
succeeded in proving his opponent wrong. Even Frank 
Podmore, the most noted anti-spiritualist, admits : 
"Whether the belief in the intercourse with spirits is 
well founded or not, it is certain that no critic has yet 
succeeded in demonstrating the inadequacy of the evi- 
dence upon which the spiritualists rely." 1 And we 
must always remember that men like Myers and Hys- 
lop and Hodgson, who have examined the phenomena 
most closely, and weighed the data most carefully, are 
strong in their spiritualistic conclusions. 

On the other hand, the spiritualist has not proved 
that telepathy is not an explanation for all spiritistic 
phenomena. We may have to stretch our conception 
of telepathy a lot to make it cover all cases, but the 
telepathist does not scruple to stretch it. 

Arguments for the Telepathic Hypothesis 

Having seen the possibility of the telepathic explana- 
tion of mediumship, let us examine specifically some of 
the reasons advanced in support of it. 

I. The character of the mistakes, confusions and 
omissions are just such as a telepathic origin would 
presuppose. Genuine telepathy is a groping for facts, 
many of which it hits, some of which it does not. An 
examination of any record of telepathic experiments 
will show this. Compare, for instance, the ability of 
the percipient in Dr. Guthrie's experiments to gain 



l Podmore: Modern Spiritualism. 



cnacs 1jZ .Comfio-endroi-S -oaotd out? 
te , Cju 'aujouTd'faiU- a aeT toztfxwfT 
je. *)lll4 ijorte d'etn d'tme. arande 
tVdocS m 'QoJtenir- &e ieccucouh 



I. Fragment of handwriting of "Leopold," one of the medium's 

alleged "controls." Automatically written by the medium while in 

spontaneous hemisomnambulism. Compare this with the medium's 
normal handwriting below. 







II. Normal handwriting of Mile. Smith. 

Handwriting of the Medium. Mile. Smith, to Show Difference 

Between Normal and Alleged "Controlled" Writing 

(Reproduced from Flournoy's "From India to the Planet Mars.") 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 325 

a complete picture of the object with the ability of 
the percipient (the medium) in the cases following. 
Place the two series side by side, and note how strik- 
ingly similar is the effect produced. 

The first example is from one of Mrs. Piper's Eng- 
lish sittings. At another sitting mention was made of 
two Florences, with the "statement that one paints and 
the other does not; that one is married and the other 
is not; and that the reference was to the 'one doesn't 
paint who is married.' It happened that Professor 
Lodge had two cousins by the name of Florence, one 
married and abroad, as indicated in the 'communica- 
tion,' and who does not paint, and one who> paints and 
is not married. In connection with the former, Phin- 
uit had said that she had a friend, Whiteman. This 
was all unintelligible to Professor Lodge, except the 
names of his cousins and their relation to painting and 
marriage, and he inquired of one of them, to find that 
she had a lady friend by the name of Mrs. Whyte- 
head, recently married, and he conjectures that the 
allusion to something as the matter with her head was 
a confusion in Phinuit's mind by the termination of 
the name. Otherwise the allusions were all correct." 1 

The telepathist also points out that many of those 
trivial proofs of identity, on whose very triviality the 
spiritualist lays great stress — like the "Give me my 
hat!" incident of the Hyslop case, already quoted — 
sound more like remembered words lurking, long for- 
gotten, down in the subliminal self. Similar is this 
example, 2 noted by : "March i, 1888, he re- 



1 Hyslop : Science and a Future Life, pp. 142-3. 
*Ibid., p. 168. 



326 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

quested, 'Throw off this rug,' referring to a loose, fur- 
lined cloak which I wore. I noted the word as a sin- 
gular designation for such a garment, and weeks after 
recalled that he had once, while living, spoken of it 
in the same way as I threw it over him on the lounge." 

Secondly, says the telepathist, the alleged spirit does 
not give evidence of all it should know. Why, when it 
is directly using the medium's hand, so much so that 
the handwriting alters, must it be limited to the knowl- 
edge existent in the waking consciousness of the me- 
dium? The spirit may have known German; Mrs. 
Piper does not. Why, if it is itself writing, must it 
obey Mrs. Piper's limitations, and be unable to write 
German? Assuredly, says the telepathist, this limita- 
tion seems suspicious ; these messages would seem to 
have an origin no further back than Mrs. Piper's own 
knowledge and consciousness. 

Now, it is true that this seems a rather valid argu- 
ment; for, barring a few Kaffir words given by Miss 
Browne, and a little Italian and one or two Hawaiian 
words uttered by Mrs. Piper, the evidence seems to 
show that the spirit must limit itself to its medium's 
mental capacity. 

But, on the other hand, we must remember that 
telepathy does not give us an iota more evidence on 
its side. A language unknown to the percipient can- 
not be received telepathically, any more than such a 
message can be transmitted by a medium. 

Objections to the Telepathic Hypothesis 

Before leaving the telepathic hypothesis, we would 
hardly be fair to the spiritualist if we did not say some- 
thing upon the other side. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 327 

He brings up three main objections to this telepathic 
explanation, so closely allied that I shall treat them 
together. All turn upon the fact that the "controls" 
are exceedingly able in the selection of the facts most 
likely to prove their identity; this, says the spiritist, 
involves for the telepathist these assumptions : ( i ) 
The power to select; (2) an apparent omniscience; 
that is, an ability, if the phenomena are telepathic, to 
draw upon any mind in the world for any fact; (3) 
a knowledge that facts proving personal identity are 
desired. 

We have already seen how closely the subliminal self 
seems able to imitate every earmark of genuine per- 
sonality. Especially in the cases of dual personality 
was this imitation so marvelously complete and con- 
sistent as to deceive any one unacquainted with the 
phenomenon. The apparent power to select appropri- 
ately is but an attribute of personality, and the telepa- 
thist sweeps this objection aside by saying that he be- 
lieves the subliminal self endowed with every imitative 
ability, including the ability to select. Accused, on the 
other hand, of assuming omniscience for the subliminal 
self, the telepathist denies that omniscience is even 
necessary. He asserts that there was never a fact 
delivered by a medium but had its origin either in 
the medium's mind, her sitters' minds, or in the mind 
of some one known to them or to her. 

But, concludes the spiritualist triumphantly, saving 
his big gun till the last, why, if the subliminal self is 
the sole cause and origin of all the messages, why do 
these messages reveal a continuous, eager and logical 
attempt to prove personal identity? Do you assert, 
continues the spiritualist, that the subliminal self (un- 



328 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

consciously to the medium), not content with creating 
and continuing for years entirely fictitious characters 
that it calls "controls," goes further, and cunningly 
endows these fictitious "spirits" with every attribute, 
desire, whim, method of thought, point of view and 
reason for action that a genuine spirit might have? 
Do you assert, in fact, that this subliminal self is spon- 
taneously so clever, so all-powerful in its imitative and 
imaginative ability that it can, for years, unknown to 
the medium herself, carry on so gigantic and complex 
a deception?" 

"Yes, I do ; and I believe it," answers the telepathist. 
The spiritualist holds that "the alleged discarnate spir- 
its, . . . recognize the necessity of proving their iden- 
tity, and hence supply the sort of facts commonly util- 
ized by living persons as proof of identity. Exactly," 
comments Mr. Bruce in an excellent summary of the 
gist of the telepathist's argument, "and they would do 
precisely the same thing on the supposition that they 
were not discarnate spirits at all, but, as the telepathist 
believes the evidence goes to show, were simply sec- 
ondary personalities that had taken form and charac- 
ter in Mrs. Piper's organism, just as secondary per- 
sonalities take form and character in the organism 
of a person who is hypnotized. In the last analysis 
there is no difference between the trance state into 
which Mrs. Piper goes during a seance and the trance 
state of any hypnotic subject. The distinction simply 
is that she seems to be constitutionally so nervously 
unstable that she falls spontaneously into the hypnotic 
condition. Now, a hypnotized person, . . . will enact 
with seemingly preternatural fidelity any role suggest- 
ed to him by the hypnotist. By so much more should 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 329 

Mrs. Piper, with her exceptional autohypnotic gift, 
be able to respond to suggestion, and in her varying 
secondary personalities fill roles suggested to her, how- 
ever unconsciously or subconsciously, by those who 
have so long been experimenting with her. Remem- 
ber F. W. H. Myers' criticism of the hypnotized pa- 
tients of the Salpetriere: 'One feels that the Sal- 
petriere has, in a sense, been smothered in its own 
abundance. The richest collection of hysterics which 
the world has ever seen, it has also (one fears) be- 
come a kind of unconscious school of these unconscious 
prophets — a milieu where the new arrival learns in- 
sensibly from the very atmosphere of experiment 
around her to adopt her own reflexes or responses to 
the subtly divined expectations of the operator.' 

"The case seems to be identical with respect to Mrs. 
Piper. When Professor James discovered her, nearly 
a quarter of a century ago, she was simply one of 
numerous mediums operating in and about the city of 
Boston. There were features in her mediumship, how- 
ever, which appeared to him to merit investigation, and 
accordingly the Society for Psychical Research, thru 
Dr. Hodgson, took her in hand. The results, at first, 
were comparatively meager, and often disappointing. 
It was noticed that her 'control/ the so-called 'Dr. 
Phinuit,' was given to asking leading questions and 
to making glaringly false statements. With the arri- 
val of 'George Pelham' there was a marked improve- 
ment in the mediumship, and a greater improvement 
from the day the Tmperator' group of 'controls' took 
a hand in affairs. All this time Mrs. Piper had been 
the subject of scientific investigation, had been in the 
company of zealous experimenters. Is it not possible, 



330 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

nay, is it not probable, that, like the new arrivals at 
the Salpetriere, she 'learned insensibly from the very 
atmosphere of experiment around her to adopt her 
responses to the subtly divined expectations of the 
operator' ? 

"In her case, the operators felt that the great thing 
to be established was proof of personal identity, and 
that it was therefore necessary for alleged communi- 
cating discarnate spirits to cite trivial incidents con- 
nected with their earthly career. In response, the 
secondary personality which had assumed the character 
of George Pelham, Professor Hyslop's father, or who- 
ever it might be, would flash at the operators trivial 
facts extracted telepathically from the depths of their 
own minds. There would thus be the very selective- 
ness which Professor Hyslop maintains is incredible 
on the telepathic hypothesis." 1 

In answer to this last argument Myers advances the 
excellent point that there is at least one not infrequent 
kind of message that cannot be a "mere echo of ex- 
pectation," namely, anagrams. Of these there are 
numerous examples in all mediumistic records. Sen- 
tences will be written backward, or words will be 
given in which every second letter must be read to get 
the sense. Tables will rap out spontaneously, and so 
fast that the letters can be hardly taken, long, complex 
acrostics and verbal puzzles that it may take hours to 
decipher. Surely it cannot be said that these messages 
were expected, and came in answer to the expectation. 



x Bruce: Riddle of Personality, pp. 213-6. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 331 

Other Arguments for Spiritualism 

But there must be other reasons in favor of spirit- 
ualism besides those that have been given, else it would 
not have received the adherence of those it has. The 
very fairness and moderation of your scientific spirit- 
ualist is itself an argument in his favor. Dr. Hyslop 
himself calls spiritism no more than "the best working 
hypothesis in the field to explain the phenomena con- 
cerned. Others," he adds, "may think it absolutely 
proved, but I shall not claim so much, nor place my- 
self where further inquiry and knowledge might em- 
barrass a retreat, though I think that most intelligent 
men will agree that no other hypothesis presents half 
the credentials of rationality that can be claimed for 
spiritistic agency." 1 

Myers, the very founder of modern spiritistic phi- 
losophy, admits the cogency of the telepathist's argu- 
ments ; admits, indeed, that most of the alleged spirit 
messages are merely subliminal in their origin. He 
says he does not wish to be understood to mean that 
they all come "from sources external to the automa- 
tist's own mind. In some cases they probably do this ; 
but, as a rule, the so-called messages seem more prob- 
ably to originate within the automatist's own person- 
ality. "Why, then, . . ." he says, "do I call them 
messages? We do not usually speak of a man as send- 
ing a message to himself. . . . They present them- 
selves to us as messages communicated from one 
stratum to another stratum of the same personality. 
Originating in some deeper zone of a man's being, 



hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 267. 



S22 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

they float up into superficial consciousness, as deeds, 
visions, words, ready-made and full-blown, without 
any accompanying perception of the elaborate process 
which has made them what they are." 1 

At the very outset to his monumental work, in fact, 
Myers had clearly stated very decided limitations in 
the application of the spiritistic hypothesis. "This 
work of mine," he says, "is in a large measure a crit- 
ical attack upon the main spiritist position, as held, 
say, by Mr. A. R. Wallace, its most eminent living 
supporter — the belief, namely, that all, or almost all, 
supernormal phenomena are due to the action of spirits 
of the dead. By far the larger proportion, as I hold, 
are due to the action of the still embodied spirit of the 
agent or percipient himself. Apart from speculative 
differences," he adds, "I altogether dissent from the 
conversion into a sectarian creed of what I hold should 
be a branch of scientific inquiry, growing naturally out 
of our existing knowledge. It is, I believe, largely to 
this temper of uncritical acceptance, degenerating 
often into blind credulity, that we must refer the lack 
of progress in spiritualistic literature." 2 

Such are not the words of spiritualistic fanatics, 
but of scientists who have carefully weighed conflicting 
evidence. 

There is one«strong argument in favor of spiritual- 
ism, what Dr. Hyslop calls "the dramatic play of per- 
sonality" in the communications, which, unfortunately 
from our standpoint, appeals much more strongly to 
those immediately present at the sitting than to the 



*Myers : Human Personality, p. 258. *Ibid. t p. 7. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 333 

reader. Yet I believe I can show a sufficient number 
of examples to give you the idea, if not to create the 
impression. 

"The Dramatic Play of Personality" in Mediumistic Com- 
munication 

We have already heard the telepathist claim that the 
subliminal self can imitate every phase of personality. 
But the spiritualist refuses to admit that this fictitious 
simulation can be carried far enough to create that 
overwhelming impression of the presence of real per- 
sonal "controls" that is given by the medium in the 
trance state, an impression so strong that no theory, 
or explanation, can argue it away. And this is more 
than a mere "unity of consciousness"; that is, a con- 
sistent continuance of a definite personality from sit- 
ting to sitting, tho the evidence in this respect seems 
difficult for the telepathist satisfactorily to explain. 
Dr. Hyslop says, for example, "If the reader will re- 
cur to the incidents which I have narrated as purport- 
ing to come from my father, deceased, he will observe 
that group of them . . . relating to our conversations 
on the subject of psychic research before his death. 
Here were a number of incidents belonging to that con- 
versation, the reference to hallucination, my doubts, 
thought transference, Swedenborg, hypnotism, appa- 
ritions, and dreams, with some experiments of my 
own. They are incidents which a personal conscious- 
ness might naturally be expected to recall and tell, 
but which we should not expect any telepathic process 
to do." 1 



'Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 270. 



334 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Somewhat later, Dr. Hyslop calls attention to further 
interesting continuances of incidents from sitting to 
sitting. "The 'communicator' will fail at one time to 
get his incident rightly," he says, "and come back to 
it at a later time and correct it. Or he may get it right 
at the first attempt and return to it later for giving 
additional matter, or ascertaining whether his message 
has been received or not. Thruout the experiments 
there is this natural psychological connection between 
the incidents, and perhaps as interesting a psychologi- 
cal fact as any is that which indicates this connection 
consistently carried out thru all the distinctions of per- 
sonality in different 'communicators.' There is no 
confusion of these, except apparently when some one 
acts as an intermediary for another, and this is very 
often accompanied by the statement that the incidents 
belong to another than the intermediary, so that the 
distinction of personalities is kept up." 1 

In other words, one of the main contentions of the 
spiritualist is that the amazingly consistent and com- 
plete personalities built up by the messages are too 
consistent and complete to be merely the work of im- 
agination. 

But, alas! in reply the telepathist merely points to 
cases like Professor Flournoy's Mile. Helene. Almost 
certainly telepathic as this is — unless we want to ad- 
mit the reality of those Martian spirits of hers — it is 
a remarkable example of how closely the subliminal 
self can imitate genuine spirit personalities, and how 
consistent and complete these fictitious personalities 
are. Is it not possible, then, that Mrs. Piper's "con- 



iHyslop : Science andy the Future Life, p. 271. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 335 

trols" are, after all, merely so many fictitious person- 
alities created by her subliminal self, and writing and 
speaking consistently, even for years? 

The reader will remember that different "controls" 
dominate different stages of the Piper case. These 
"controls" performed the function of a society for 
psychical research for "the other side." They chose 
communicators and secured them ; arranged sittings for 
them, decided the order of their speaking; in short, 
supervised every detail of sending the messages. 

"Now, it must be conceivable," remarks Dr. Hyslop, 
"that, if this is true, we should expect that any diffi- 
culties associated with the 'communications' would be 
accompanied by various intrusions of conversation and 
remarks on the 'other side' not intended to be 'com- 
municated,' but which would slip through, neverthe- 
less, just as irrelevancies often occur in the telephone 
when lines are crossed or conditions favor a confusion 
and interruption of messages." 1 

And as it happens, we have in the record many ex- 
amples of this very thing. "Just at the beginning of 
a sitting, Rector, acting as 'control' at the time, ap- 
parently said to the 'communicator,' who purported to 
be my father, 'Speak clearly, sir. Come over here.' 
The reply was 'Yes,' as if intending to obey Rector's 
injunction; and then Dr. Hodgson was accosted with 
the question, 'Are you with James?' On Dr. Hodg- 
son's affirmative reply, my father responded, with an 
evident understanding that he was to 'communicate' 
with Dr. Hodgson in my absence, and the sitting went 
on." 2 



hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 274. 
'Ibid., pp. 275-6. 



336 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

There are interruptions by one of the "controls" or 
communicators just as spontaneous and natural as any- 
similar incident on earth. "There were a number of 
these interferences by George Pelham. He is generally 
better at getting proper names than Rector, and on oc- 
casions when these give difficulty, George Pelham is 
likely to be called in to assist. Let me take some illus- 
trations of this. 

"There had been some difficulty and confusion from 
the start in getting the name of my cousin, Robert 
McClellan, calling it 'Allen,' 'McCollum,' 'McAllen,' 
etc. On one occasion, when this cousin was trying to 
'communicate,' he gave the name of George Pelham 
in full, and said that he, George Pelham, was assist- 
ing him to 'communicate.' A moment later, right in 
the midst of a 'communication' which was greatly con- 
fused, George Pelham suddenly interjects the excla- 
mation : 'Look out, Hodgson, I am here — George Pel- 
him. Imperator sent me some moments ago.' Then, 
in a few minutes, while Rector was struggling to get 
the name McClellan clear, and could only get 'McAl- 
len,' George Pelham breaks in and says : 'Sounds like 
McCellan, George Pelham,' and my cousin acknowl- 
edges its correctness by saying, 'Yes, I am he.' 1 

"This cleavage of personalities and interference and 
interruption of the messages in the manner described 
represents a dramatic action quite natural in the situa- 
tion, and there is no need of it on the telepathic hy- 
pothesis." 2 



^yslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 277. 
2 Ibid., pp. 278-9. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 337 

Similarly, the mistakes and confusion which abound 
in the record have a genuinely personal flavor, which 
the hypothesis of telepathic simulation hardly accounts 
for. Dr. Hyslop, for example, once asked for informa- 
tion regarding an old neighbor named Samuel Coop- 
er. The information given by the "communicator" 
(Dr. Hyslop's father) was entirely wrong; but was 
afterward found to be right concerning a Dr. Joseph 
Cooper. It is natural enough that the mind of a dead 
man suffer from defective memory; but, on a tel- 
epathic theory, how is such a mix-up explicable ? Dr. 
Hyslop had not thought of Dr. Joseph Cooper for 
years; his mind was full of Samuel Cooper. Why 
should not telepathy have selected this Cooper to whom 
to give its imaginary messages? 

Here is another illustration given by Dr. Hyslop: 
"On one occasion I had asked what my uncle had died 
with, and it was two years before I received the cor- 
rect answer. But the immediate answer involved the 
statement first that Robert had gotten his foot injured 
on the railroad, and then it was afterward ascribed to 
Frank, both Robert and Frank being names of my 
brothers. With reference to them, however, the state- 
ments were false. My brother Frank had had an in- 
jured leg, but it was not caused in any connection with 
a railway. My brother Robert never had any such 
injury. But my uncle, about whom I had asked the 
question, had had his leg cut off, or nearly cut off, at 
the ankle, by a railway car, and died from the effects 
of the operation a few hours later. No living memory 
had the facts as they were told, while their correct 



338 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

form was not given. This is not a natural phenome- 
non of telepathy. . . .* 

"Another incident 2 shows this confusion very clear- 
ly," says Dr. Hyslop. "My father had referred to an 
illness which my sister had had three months before the 
sitting, he having died six years previously. But he 
could not continue what he wished to say, and later he 
returned with the help of my wife, who had died two 
years before ; calling her his wife — a statement correct- 
ed by her spontaneously the next day — he showed some 
confusion again about my sister, and Rector, the 'con- 
trol/ said (wrote) to me: 'He seems a little dazed in 
thought. It is most certainly connected with Lida in 
the body.' Then my father went on to mention a dis- 
ease and physical difficulties that he claimed had been 
his own, the main one of which I knew to be false with 
regard to him. But inquiry showed that examination 
had been made for this one in my sister's case, and that 
the other two incidents were especially relevant to my 
sister, and were relevant to my father's condition just 
before death. The interesting circumstance, however, 
is that Rector was aware of the irrelevance of the facts 
as he was going to state them, and forewarned me as 
to their reference, while my father went on with a 
confused sense of personal identity, claiming as his 
own what was, in fact, intended as true for my sister." 

Here is an incident 3 showing how clearly the earthly 
consciousness seems to continue after death. The ex- 
ample, an excellent one, occurs in Dr. Hodgson's re- 
port on tke Piper case. "After the death of George 



1 Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 282. 
'Ibid., pp. 323-4- 3 Ibid., pp. 324-5- 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 339 

Pelham a friend of the deceased, by the name of Mr. 
Hart, had some sittings with Mrs. Piper, and was very 
much annoyed by the way in which the messages were 
spelled out in confusion, this process extending often 
to very ordinary words. Some time later Mr. Hart 
himself suddenly dies, and soon afterward became a 
'communicator,' but at first a very confused one. Dr. 
Hodgson had known him in life, and was present at his 
sittings. One day this Mr. Hart turned up at one of 
Dr. Hodgson's sittings and engaged in the following 
'communications/ whose significance is apparent at a 
glance : 

" 'What in the world is the reason you never call 
for me? I am not sleeping. I wish to help you in 
identifying myself. ... I am a good deal better now. 
(You were confused at first.) Very; but I did not 
really understand how confused I was. It is more so, 
I am more so when I try to speak to you. I under- 
stand now why George spelled his words to me.' " 

Here the spirit confesses his own inadequacy as a 
communicator, and refers to a trivial criticism of the 
same fault in another communicator, a criticism which 
he had made when on earth. Does it seem likely that 
telepathy simulates all these little details? 

Does telepathy simulate, too, the constant and fre- 
quent change of communicators, occurring thousands 
of times in the record? Why should some communi- 
cators be clear, correct and rational, and others be con- 
fused, lying and incoherent? Would this be true if 
they were all the imaginary creatures of the subliminal 
self? "This simulation of what we should most natu- 
rally expect of spirits ought not to characterize telep- 
athy. There is apparently nothing in the memory of 



340 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

the sitters or other living persons to make the incidents 
remembered of one person easily accessible and those 
of another impossible. Thus, for instance, in my 
record I received practically nothing about my mother 
except her name, and even that was given by another 
than herself ! My uncle, James M'cClellan, was a very 
clear 'communicator' in most .incidents, and his son was 
almost a failure, tho I remembered far more about the 
son than I did about his father. Another uncle was 
very confused for two years, but much clearer after 
that, while my father became more confused with 
time." 1 

There is a great difference, Dr. Hyslop notes, "be- 
tween," for example, "Rector's and George Pelham's 
ability to get proper names, or certain difficult and un- 
familiar messages, while they are otherwise about equal 
in their abilities. There is no reason of an ordinary 
kind that can be adduced for their equality in all but 
proper names and the like. George Pelham is better 
than Rector in this respect, tho the telepathic hypothe- 
sis has to assume them merely secondary personali- 
ties of Mrs. Piper." 2 

Here you have the problem, very briefly and inade- 
quately outlined, awaiting your decision. Telepathy vs. 
spiritism : which explains these remarkable phenomena ? 
The evidence is still inconclusive : diligent workers are 
still toiling in the mine of psychic research; if I have 
made you believe that there is there, among a great 
deal of rubbish, a little very much worth while, I shall 
have achieved my purpose. 



hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 262. 
*Ibid., p. 265. 



"I FEEL, I KNOW WITH CERTITUDE THAT IN DYING 
I SHALL BE HAPPY" 

We live in dreams almost with the same intensity as in 
reality. Pascal said, "I believe that if in our dreams we could 
see ourselves constantly with the same surroundings, with, on 
the contrary, those of our every-day life as infinitely varied as 
our dreams, we would consider the dream as the reality, and 
the reality as the dream." 

This is not altogether exact. 

The reality is distinguished from the dream in that it is 
more real. 

I would express it differently: If we had never known a 
life more real than our dreams we would consider the dream 
as the reality, and we would never doubt that it was our real 
life. 

All of our life, from the cradle to the grave, is it not, with 
all of its dreams, in reality a dream which we mistake for the 
reality? Are we not certain of its reality solely because we 
do not know of another life which is more real? 

Not only do I believe this, but I am convinced that this is 
the only reason of our certitude. 

********* 

Even as during our terrestrial life we live through a thou- 
sand dreams, this is only one of thousands of lives from which 
we have come, and to which we will return, to another life, 
more real, more authentic, and to which we will return after 
our death. 

********* 

Our terrestrial life is one of the dreams of another life, more 
real, and so on, to the infinite, to the life eternal which is 
the life of God. 

********* 
Birth, and the dawning of the first notions of the world, 
may be considered the commencement of sleep: all of our ter- 
restrial life as a profound sleep: death as the awakening. 

Premature death is the death of one who is awakened before 
having finished all his sleep. 

341 



342 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

Death from old age is the death of one who has finished 
his sleep and awakens of his own accord. 

Suicide is a nightmare which one forces to disappear when 
one realizes that one has been asleep. 

A man who is entirely absorbed by the present life, who feels 
no presentiment of another life, is one who sleeps profoundly. 

Profound sleep, without dreams, is comparable to a state of 
semi-bestiality. 

The sleeper who feels during his sleep what takes place 
around him, who sleeps lightly, and who is ready to awaken at 
any instant, is he who has a consciousness, even though vague, 
of the life from which he has come, and to which he is about 
to return. 

During sleep mankind is always selfish, lives for himself, 
without partaking in the lives of his kind, bound to them by 
no ties. 

In the life which we consider as the real life, our ties to our 
kind are already greater: there exists the appearance of love 
of our brother. 

In the life from which we have come, and to which we 
will return, this tie is closer: love of our fellow man is no 
longer a simple aspiration, but a reality. The lives of which 
we have spoken are only a preparation for the life eternal, 
where the ties which bind us all are still closer and brotherly 
love greater still. 

All that we dream and resolve in this life will perhaps be 
realized in the life to come. 

The corporeal body in which we live here below forms an 
impediment to the beautiful things which our spirit conceives, 
and hinders their execution. Matter is the enemy of the spirit. 
The real life begins when that impediment is abolished. 

Within this idea is encompassed all that we know of the 
truth, and it gives to man the consciousness of eternal life. 

I am not amusing myself in imagining a theory. I believe 
with all my soul in what I have just said. I feel, I KNOW 
with certitude that in dying I shall be happy, and that I will 
enter into a life more real. 

—Count Tolstoi. 



CHAPTER XV 
CONCLUSION 

The truths which the spiritualist claims — with much 
reason— that he has both revealed and substantiated, 
are immeasurably the most important with which sci- 
ence has had to do. 

Scientific research has fostered the growth of a most 
cold-blooded materialism; which, however little it has 
been itself accepted, has seriously undermined the au- 
thority of the church and the influence of religion. The 
Christian of the second century and the monk of the 
eighth viewed this life as but a transitory period of 
trial and preparation for "another world." To them, 
as to all Christians for hundreds of years, the Bible 
was more than an inspired code of morals ; it was a 
literal record of actual events. We now little realize 
how the Mediterranean world welcomed that early 
teaching; to them it was literally the "Go(d)-spel," 
the "Good News." Why "good news"? Because it 
had set their doubts at rest. There was a future life 
for all : they were sure of it ; for "one had died and rose 
from the dead." 

But doubts are stubborn things. After nineteen 
hundred years we find the same old query and hesitation 
and unsatisfied longing rising again. The Reforma- 
tion struck the first blow; the polite and mocking 
atheism of the seventeenth century struck another ; but 
modern science — the doctrine of evolution, the methods 
348 



SU ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

of critical research — must be credited with the last and 
severest, a blow, indeed, that was staggering. We 
were told that geology proved that this earth of ours 
was several million years in the making instead of a few 
days. We were told that the Book of Isaiah, for ex- 
ample, so far from being the work of a man by that 
name, was probably a patchwork, mostly by two men 
who lived some hundred years apart. We were told, 
lastly, by some very eminent persons, that the miracles 
of the Apostles and of the Christ himself were contrary 
to the laws of nature, and therefore were obviously 
myths. 

At just about this time science was doing very won- 
derful things — cleaving mountains, spanning conti- 
nents with a tremor of intelligent electricity, propelling 
leviathans on the seas and projectile-like carriers on the 
land, fabricating wonderfully complex machines for 
doing better and faster everything human hands could 
do — in short, science was a great body of active, pow- 
erful infallibility; its decrees were listened to with awe, 
and accepted almost unquestioningly, regardless of be- 
lief or former bias. 

Biology, psychology, history, found no place for 
miracles ; and the Christian world suddenly found the 
foundation of its dogma tottering under ruthless attack. 
Almost unconsciously, men began to think perhaps 
One didn't "arise from the dead," after all ; that per- 
haps that story was more or less of a myth. Anyway, 
it happened so long ago its appeal was growing rather 
hazy. And to-day, as a result, the average man is no 
longer sure of the future life: he hopes, he believes, 
or he does not care or does not think; he certainly 
does not know. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 345 

But as far back as the 70's the pendulum had be- 
gun to swing the other way; now, whatever we may 
think of a belief in the reality of certain psychical phe- 
nomena, it is, among educated people, gaining momen- 
tum daily. 

Spiritualism and the Bible 

Rereading the Biblical story in the light of the re- 
searches of the Society for Psychical Research, how 
brightly illumined are many places formerly dark ! 
Looking at it from the spiritualistic standpoint, the in- 
spired Book sounds like a veritable record of medium- 
ship. 

Both the Old and New Testaments are patchwork 
narratives, whose focal points and climaxes are in- 
stances of ecstasy or vision, some of them clairvoy- 
ant, some of them in dreams. Moses, Joseph, all the 
prophets, Mary, Elizabeth, Stephen at his martyrdom, 
Saul on the way to Damascus, John — the list is a long 
one. In many cases these visions were precognitions, 
or prophecies. 

We have telepathy exerted often in the Old Testa- 
ment, by the Apostles, and scores of times by the Mas- 
ter himself. The Bible does not call it "telepathy," of 
course ; but that is what is described : "Knowing their 
hearts" the record puts it, or "perceiving what she was 
thinking." 

We have possession by external spirits — "possessed 
with devils" is the usual phrase — as with the swine in 
"the country beyond the Jordan," and the demoniacal 
girl. The latter's symptoms, as recorded, are almost ex- 
actly those of the trance state in motor automatism; 
and there are other descriptions of mediumistic trance 



S46 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

and of mediums, tho the Bible usually calls the latter 
"witches." 

In connection with Moses' miracles occurred numer- 
ous physical phenomena in a class with table-tipping 
and the Zollner phenomena. And we have in the Old 
and New Testaments at least three descriptions of 
levitation. 

We have cases of apparitions, quite often in the Old 
Testament, more rarely in the New. The latter com- 
pensates, however, by giving us the most striking and 
most thoroly substantiated case of materialisation that 
we have, namely, that of the resurrected Christ him- 
self, who ate and "suffered them to touch him," yet 
who passed thru the solid walls of the upper chamber 
at Jerusalem. 

In fact, you will be amazed by the correspondence in 
the phenomena recorded, case after case, detail after 
detail, in the Bible, substantiated and corroborated by 
the researches of modern spiritualism. Even the fraud- 
ulent phenomena were existent then, as now; for we 
are told there were "false prophets" who did "divers 
wonders." 

Modern science herself coming to the rescue of the 
Scriptural narrative — this is indeed an anomaly! Yet 
the church could gain no better ally ; and spiritualism, 
if it be true, and I, least of all, have any desire to say 
dogmatically that it either is or is not— will /be the 
means of restoring to Christianity, a hundredfold 
stronger, the place it has slowly lost in the minds and 
hearts of many men. We know, say the spiritualists, 
that "One has risen from the dead"; we know that 
there is a future life, for we have proved it. Give 
Christianity the basis of immortality again, founded 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 347 

this time on reason as well as faith, and to what will 
it not attain? 

The Difficulty of Knowing of the "Other World" 

Before closing, I wish to touch with the utmost brev- 
ity upon one or two important general points. 

We must never forget how little, after all, we know 
about what troubles those "on the other side" may have 
in their attempt to communicate. Remember, we do 
not know that these "spirits" have our senses or our 
memories as we have them, any more than we have the 
senses and memories of some possible previous exist- 
ence. 

And if they do have them, they may be simply relics 
of the earth world, unused and almost unusable. We 
can imagine what a shock the change we call death is 
upon the continuity of their personality; we may im- 
agine how hard it is for the deceased spirit to grow 
accustomed to his new environment. Perhaps in the 
new life the earth-senses atrophy with disuse, and the 
earth-memories fade very fast into irrevocable forget- 
fulness. It may be that the ability to communicate re- 
quires a strong effort of will and great exertion, or 
even pain, to the spirit. Knowing none of these things, 
do not let us blame the spirits if we think they fail 
to do even "their share." 

Or, as Dr. Hyslop says, their earth-memories may 
be to them much as our dreams are to us, a confused, 
phantasmagoric stream of sensations and incidents, in 
which it is wofully hard for the spirit to focus upon 
the points desired in communication. 

And besides all these difficulties there are so few of 
those loopholes that we call mediums, thru which they 






348 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

can catch glimpses of our earth-world! We know 
nothing about this desire, confusion and difficulty on 
the other side, perhaps as great as are ours on this. 
"Even in such fashion," says Frederic Myers, "thru 
Mrs. Piper's trances, the thronging multitude of the 
departed press to the glimpse of light. Eager, but 
untrained, they interject their uncomprehended cries; 
vainly they call the names that no man answered ; like 
birds that have beaten against a lighthouse, they . . . 
fly in disappointment away." 1 

Dr. Hodgson sums up most admirably the difficulties 
which may bar the way to a spirit's mediumistic com- 
munications. "If, indeed, each one of us is a 'spirit' 
that survives the death of the fleshly organism, there 
are certain suppositions that I think we may not un- 
reasonably make concerning the ability of the discar- 
nate 'spirit' to communicate with those yet incarnate. 
Even under the best of conditions for communication 
— which I am supposing for the nonce to be possible 
— it may well be that the aptitude for communicating 
clearly may be as rare as the gifts that make a great 
artist, or a great mathematician, or a great philosopher. 
Again, it may well be that, owing to the change con- 
nected with death itself, the 'spirit' may at first be much 
confused, and such confusion may last for a long time ; 
and even after the 'spirit' has become accustomed to 
its new environment, it is not an unreasonable suppo- 
sition that if it came into some such relation to another 
living human organism as it once maintained with its 
own former organism, it would find itself confused by 
that relation. The state might be like that of awaking 



^■National Review, 1898, p. 240. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 349 

from a prolonged period of unconsciousness into 
strange surroundings. If my own ordinary body could 
be preserved in its present state, and I could absent 
myself from it for days or months or years, and con- 
tinue my existence under another set of conditions alto- 
gether, and if I could then return to my own body, it 
might well be that I should be very confused and in- 
coherent at first in my manifestations by means of it. 
How much more would this be the case were I to re- 
turn to another human body." 

One of the very commonest condemnations of psy- 
chical phenomena heard is that they have given us, 
so far, very little information about the "other world." 
Perhaps the spirits, even if they would, are absolutely 
unable to give intelligible information ; and I believe 
this quotation from Dr. Savage will make clear at least 
one reason why : "All our knowledge here is limited, 
of necessity, by our past experience, the experience 
of the race. If I were to attempt to describe to you 
any new thing or any new place, I could do it only by 
comparing it with something with which you are al- 
ready familiar ; and just in so far as it was unlike any- 
thing with which you were familiar, just in so far it 
would be simply impossible for me to describe it to 
you so that you could have any intelligible idea of it. 
Suppose, for example, that I should come back from 
a journey in Central Africa, and should sit down with 
a friend and say, 'I found a very strange and curious 
thing there,' and he should say, 'Well, what shape was 
it?' I would say, 'It was not the shape of anything 
you ever saw. It was a new shape.' 'What color was 
it?' 'It was a new color.' 'What was it like?' 'It 
was not like anything you ever saw.' Do you not see 



350 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

that it would be absolutely impossible for me to explain 
it to him, tho I might know about it, and might be ab- 
solutely certain of the fact?" 1 

Our universe is a universe of the senses: we see, 
hear, feel, smell, taste things; and so know that the 
universe exists. We know nothing of what the "other 
world" is like. There they may neither see, hear, feel, 
taste nor smell : how, then, can they describe to us their 
world ? Helen Kellar, born blind, deaf and dumb, lives 
in a universe of touch. She cannot realize our world. 
We may tell her about it ; yet she, without three of our 
five senses, can form only an incomplete idea of it. 
Supposing she had none of our senses : this may be 
similarly our condition in relation to that other world. 
How can they tell us concerning it ? And, did they tell 
us, how much wiser would we be? Yet, after all, we 
are not entirely without information regarding the oth- 
er world : we may know but one or two facts, but they 
are important ones. 

The Evidence of Future Happiness 

One of the first things noticed by the psychic re- 
searchers was the uniformly high moral character of 
the communications received. This has not, as Mr. 
Myers says, been sufficiently noticed or adequately ex- 
plained. "Haunting phantoms, incoherent and unintel- 
ligent, may seem restless and unhappy. But as they 
rise into definiteness, intelligence, individuality, the 
phantoms rise also into love and joy. / cannot recall 
one single case of a proved posthumous combination of 



'Savage : The Life After Death, p. 274. 



ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 851 

intelligence and wickedness. Such evil as our evidence 
will show us ... is scarcely more than monkeyish 
mischief, childish folly. . . . But ... all that world- 
old conception of evil spirits, of malevolent powers, 
which has been the basis of so much of actual devil- 
Worship and of so much more vague supernatural fear 
— all this insensibly melts from the mind as we study 
the evidence before us." 1 

Regarding- the final solution of the psychic problem, 
most of us are, as yet, not at all sure; some of us deem 
incredible the conclusions reached by the believers in 
spiritualism ; yet we are not sure of our unbelief ! Some 
of us, on the other hand, believe the proof of a future 
life scientifically established; but we realize that our 
basis is none too surely set. 

After all, what do we expect to settle in twenty-five 
years' research ? The supreme problem that has trou- 
bled mankind for countless centuries? We must be- 
ware of unwarranted generalizations and deductions 
too hastily made from insufficiently observed facts. It 
seems incongruous here to say that nothing else 
had delayed the progress of psychical research so 
much as the lack of funds. But so it is. Yet 
funds will eventually be forthcoming, and the 
work will go on, not impatiently, not with blind 
incredulity, but steadily and surely. "Remember," says 
one who should know best, "that this inquiry must be 
extended over many generations; nor must he allow 
himself to be persuaded that there are short cuts to 
mastery. . . . We have no confidence here more than 
elsewhere in any methods except the open, candid, 



'Myers: Human Personality, p. 252. 



352 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 

straightforward methods which the spirit of modern 
science demands." 1 And a little further on he adds: 
"Beyond us still is mystery ; but it is mystery lit and 
mellowed with an infinite hope. We ride in darkness 
at the haven's mouth ; but sometimes thru rifted clouds 
we see the desires and creeds of many generations float- 
ing and melting upward into a distant glow." 2 



flyers : Human Personality, p. 252. 

2 Myers : The Drift of Psychical Research. National Review, 
v. 24, p. 190. 



THE END 



INDEX 



A., Miss, medium, 276-8 

Abruzzi, Duke of the, Eusapia's 

patron, 74 
Accordion playing, 26 
Adare, Lord, levitations with Home, 

66-7 
Agents, in telepathic experiments, 

236-7 
Aggazotti, Alberta, at second Turin 

seances, 95 
Ahrensburg cemetery disturbances, 

210 
Aksakof, M., at Milan sittings, 78; 

striking levitation test of, 84; 
Alexis, clairvoyant medium, 24 
Amusing fraud, an, 179-80 
Anagrams, in messages, 330 
Anesthesia, induced telepathically, 

247-8 
Animals, see apparitions? 207-11 
Anthropomorphization of ghosts, 

202 
Apparitions, remarkable, 117-18; 

proofs of immateriality of, 195-6; 

evidenced in proof of future life, 

289-90; in the Bible, 346 
Apparitions of the dead, see Ghosts 
Apparitions of the living, 181-7; 

proved by Census, 181; statement 

of Dr. Savage, 182; probable, 183; 

premonitory, 183-4; self-projection, 

184-7; case of Mr. Kirk, 184-5; c ase 

of the Misses Verity, 185-6; man's 

astral body travels many miles, 

186 
Appetites, hypnotic control of, 166 
Apports, of flowers, n; of flowers 

and fruit, 29; definition of, 86; 

reality of (Wallace), 221 



Apulian dialect, Eusapia speaks, 73 

"Arena," remarkable case of pre- 
monition in, 254-5 

Arlington, Mass., home of Mrs. Pi- 
per, 291 

Arullani, Dr., at second Turin 
seances, 96 

Association for the Advancement of 
Science, Crookes' Address before, 
9 

Astral body, possibility of, 126 

Astral body, projection of the, see 
Self-projection 

Astral hands leave prints, 78; break 
a mold, 118; seen, 106-10 

Astral hands, see also Materializa- 
tion 

Astral members, education of, 1 15-16 

Auburn, Fox sisters visit, 42 

Audenino, Dr., at first Turin sit- 
tings, 91 

Auto-hypnotization, see Self-hypno- 
tization 

Automatic writing, observed by 
Dialectical Society, 29; W. T. 
Stead on, 172; of Moses MSS., 
283-4; Mrs. Piper's, 293; .spiritistic 
hypothesis for, 323-4 

Automatism, phenomena of, 266-71 ; 
various phases of, 268-72; defini- 
tion of, 269 

Automatism, see also "Watseka 
Wonder," Possession, Motor 
Automatism 

Aylesbury, Commander T., case of, 
161-2 

B 

B., Mme., case of, 134-5 
Balfour, Arthur James, president of 
S. P. R., 5 
355 



356 



INDEX 



Barbaroux, Jacques, at first Turin 
seances, 91 

Barber, Mrs. Caroline, case of 
telepathy, 233 

Barrett, Prof. W. F., founder of 
S. P. R., 5; rappings observed by, 
45; table tipping noted, 48; is 
there a future life? 288; impos- 
sible ever to prove, 288-9; eminent 
scientific men believe it proved, 
2S9; psychic phenomena not 
trivial, 289; evidence of appari- 
tions, 289-90 

Barzini, at Genoa sittings, 86 

Beauchamp, Miss, case of, 135-6 

Bebee, Harriet, becomes medium, 
42 

Bellachini, endorses Slade, 25 

Berisso, at Genoa sittings, 86 

Bianchi, M., at first Naples sittings, 
76 

Bible, spiritualism and the, 343-6; 
ecstasy in the, 345; precognitions 
in the, 345; telepathy in the, 345; 
possession in the, 345-6; mediums 
in the, 346; physical phenomena 
in the, 346; levitation in the, 346; 
apparitions in the, 346; materiali- 
zation in the, 346; fraudulent phe- 
nomena in the, 346 

Birchall, Mr., agent in telepathic 
experiments, 237 

Blavatsky, Mme., detected in fraud, 
14 

Bocca, M., at first Turin seances, 91 

Bodies, movement of, 11 

Bodily organism, powers of the, 
163-4 

Borrelli, Count Guy, at first Turin 
seances, 91 

Bottazzi, Filippo, convinced of fu- 
ture existence, 99; wishes proofs, 
101 ; works with scientific thoro- 
ness, 102; describes materializa- 
tions, 107, 108, 109; photographs 
materialized hand, 109; and Eusa- 
pia's synchronism, 113-15 

Bouquet, levitation of a, 100 



Bourne, Ansel, remarkable case of, 
136-9; leaves his home in Greene, 
R. I., 136; as A. J. Brown in 
Norristown, Pa, 136; awakening, 
137; hypnotized, tells his story, 
137-9 

Bozzano, at Genoa sittings, 86 

Breaking to pieces of a table, 97 

Breathing, changes in, in trance, 
150 

Breeze, cold, from medium, 92 

Brewer's Dictionary of Miracles, 
Home's exploits in, 64 

British Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science, Cfooke's 
address before, 9 

British Society for Psychical Re- 
search, see Society for Psychical 
Research 

Brougham, Lord, ghost seen by, 
188-9 

Brown, A. J., see Bourne, Ansel 

Bruce, H. Addington, summarizes 
difficulties with old definition of 
self, 129-30; Mrs. Piper's phenom- 
ena telepathic, 328-9 

Bulgings of cabinet curtain, typical 
example, 87-8 

Bundy, Col. J. C, investigates 
"Watseka Wonder" case, 140 



Cabinet curtain, bulgings of, typi- 
cal example, 87-8 

Cahagnet's subject, case of automa- 
tism, 271 

"Canning, Willie," a control of 
Rancy Vennum, 144 

Cardarelli, Antonio, at Naples 
seances, 104 

Card-plates, levitation of, 26 
'Cards, telepathy with, 244-5 

Carrington, Hereward, wholesale 
fraud in slate-v/riting, 32-3; diffi- 
culty of detecting it, 37; criticism 
of Zollner phenomena, 39; table- 
tipping certainly genuine, 48; con- 
clusions regarding table-tipping, 



INDEX 



357 



S3; endorses Home, 63; note on 
Home's "elongation," 68-9; fraud 
in spirit photography common, 
177-8; shows methods of, 178-80; 
tells an amusing fraud, 179-80; 
methods of "mind-reading," 228- 
31; fraud improbable in Piper 
case, 294 
Catalepsis, 166. 

Census of Hallucinations, 173-6; 
proves apparitions of the living, 
181-2 
Chain, breaks in mediumistic, 105 
Chair, levitation of, 11 
Challis, Professor, quoted, 21 
Change in communicators, argu- 
ment from, 339-40 
Chiaia, Prof., Eusapia and, 75 
Christian, early, view of future life, 

343 
Christian Science, place of, 167 
Christ's passion, stigmata of, 166 
Clairaudience, definition, 7; phe- 
nomena of, 161-3; case of Com- 
mander Aylesbury, 161-2; case of 
the Jeannette, 162; case of Major- 
Gen. R., 162-3 
Clairvoyance, definition, 7; typical 
cases of, 152-6; case of Prof. Greg- 
ory, 152-3; message with planchet, 
154; spirit tells of distant events, 
155; violation of a grave, 155-6; 
finding of Helge Dehli, 156-7; 
case of Bertha Huse, 158-61; other 
examples of, 161; what is clair- 
voyance? 163-7 
Clay, impressions in, see Impres- 
sions in clay 
Clothes, of ghosts, 204; material- 
ized, 214; melt away, 214; restore 
themselves, 215 
Coals, hot, handled with impunity, 

69-70 
Cold breeze from medium, 92 
Cold of seance room registers on 

thermometer, 13 
Communication with the dead pos- 
sible, 171; example of, 172; diffi- 
culties in, 348-9 



Communications, spirit, how made, 
261-2; by direct writing, 262-3; not 
easy, 265-6; supernormal knowl- 
edge in mediumistic, 279-82 

Communications, see Messages 

Communicators, change in, argu- 
ment from, 339-40 

Confusion, in messages, argument 
from, 337-8 

Consciousness, threshold of, 131; 
subliminal, 130-2 

Continuation of incidents from sit- 
ting to sitting, 333-5; similar cases 
in telepathy, 334-5 

Control, phenomena of, 139 

Controls, remarkable change in, 
304-5; 307-9; interference between, 
335-6 

Controls, see also "Phinuit" con- 
trol, "Pelham" control, "Imper* 
ator" control, etc. 

Conway, percipient in telepathy, 242 

Cook, Miss, materializing medium, 
217-20 

Cord, knots tied in, 90 

Corriere della Sera, sittings under 
auspices of, 85 

Cox, Edw., Report of Dialectical 
Society, 31-2 

Crawford, Earl of, see Lindsay, 
Master of 

Creasy, Jack, a "spirit," 276-8 

Credulity, danger of, 20 

Crookes, Sir William, converted to 
spiritualism, 4; phenomena ob- 
served by, 9-14; states his posi- 
tion, 10; gets a lath message, 
13-14; defends his position, 19-20; 
statement of, 22; rappings ob- 
served by, 43-5; table-tipping cer- 
tain, 48-9; Home's levitations 
with, 64-6; Home's heat phenom- 
ena with, 69-70; table of vibra- 
tions, 126; message with planchet, 
154; scientific courage of, 199; 
materialized clothes with, 214-15; 
materializations with Home, 215- 
17; Katie King materialization, 



358 



INDEX 



217-20; message by direct writing, 
262-3 

Crystal gazing, observed by Dia- 
lectical Society, 29 

Curtain of cabinet, bulgings of, 
typical example, 87-8 



Damiani, Sig., teaches Eusapia 
spiritualism, 75 

Dark room, why necessary, 59 

Davey, S. J., duplicates slate-writing 
tricks, 16 

Dead, the, do not seem to be source 
of psychic force, 58; soul may 
exist after death without commu- 
nication, 58; communication with 
the, possible, 171; example of, 172; 
have never died (Wallace), 221 

De Amicis, investigates Eusapia, 
100; at Naples seances, 104 

Death, apparitions immediately after, 
175-6; apparition at moment of, 
191; apparitions before, 1; telepa- 
thy more possible at moment of, 
227; a, described by automatic 
writing, 302-3; an awakening 
(Tolstoi), 342 

Death, see also Future life 

DeGasparin, table-tipping researches 
of, 50-1; table tested with flour, 
51; stubbornness of tables, 51 

Dehli, Helge, finding of, 156-7 

Delayed percipience, 321; definition 
of, 322-3 

Delusion, does not explain Dialecti- 
cal Society phenomena, 30 

"Demons, possessed by," see Pos- 



Discarnate spirits, not necessary to 

psychic phenomena, 116-19 
Discarnate spirits, possession by, 

see Possession 
Distance, events at a, told, 155; ac- 
tions observed at a, 306-7 
Diver, aided by clairvoyance, 160-1 
"Doctor," control, 285 
Dogs, see apparitions? 207-11 
Double, astral, see Self-projection 
Double exposure, "spirit" photog- 
raphy, 179 
Double impression, telepathic send- 
ing of, 240-2 
Double slates, slate-writing with, 

34 
"Dramatic play of personality," ar- 
gument from, 332-40; continuance 
of incidents from sitting to sit- 
ting, 333-5; interference between 
controls, 335-6 
•Drawings, by "spirits," 29; clair- 
voyant, 156-7; telepathy of, 239-42 
Dream, life is a (Tolstoi), 341 
Drums, rappings imitating, 45 
Dual personality, not uncommon, 
134; case of Mary Reynolds, 134; 
case of Mme. B., 134-5; case of 
Felida X., 13s; Miss Beauchamp 
case, 135-6; remarkable case of 
Ansel Bourne, 136-9; distinguished 
from possession, 139 
Dummy book, fraudulent slate- 
writing with, 35 
Du Prel, Chas., at Milan sittings, 78 
Dynamometer, registers levitation, 

13; fraud in register, 94 
Dynamo, winds itself up, 107 



Dentist saves his life by premoni- 
tion, 252-3 
De Rochas, theory of fluidic double, 

113 
Dessoir, German spiritualist, 5 
Dialectical Society, see London Dia- 
lectical Society 
Direct writing, message by, 2623 
Disappearance of table, miraculous, 
40 



Earles, Ansel Bourne rents shop of 
the, 137 

Ecstasy, evidence for, 225; in the 
Bible, 345 

Education, of astral members, 
115-16 

Eglinton, slate-writing medium, 16 

Elliotson, Dr., convert to spiritual- 
ism, 17 



INDEX 



Elongation, observed by Dialectical 
Society, 29; Home's, 67-9 

Enfield, N. H., home of Bertha 
Huse, 158 

Ermacora, Dr., at Milan sittings, 78 

Erotic ecstasy, trance state, 149 

Espie, Mr., suicide of, 168 

Etheric hands, see Astral hands 

Evidence, laws of, 222-3 

Externalization of sensibility, with 
Eusapia, 113 

Eye-glasses, levitation of, 100 

Eyes, Eusapia's, 103 



Faces, materialization of, 217 

Faraday, measures "psychic force," 
52 

Fechner, observed Zollner phenom- 
ena, 38; partially blind, 39 

Felida X., case of, 135 

Fingers, luminosity around, in; 
anestheticized telepathically, 247-S 

Finzi, M., Milan sittings with, 78 

Fire phenomena, see Heat phe- 
nomena 

Fish, Mrs., one of Fox sisters, 42 

Flags, telepathic drawings of, 239- 
42 

Flames, see Luminous appear- 
ances 

Flammarion, Camille, attacks skep- 
ticism, 20; rappings noted by, 45; 
table-tipping no longer doubtful, 
48; has no doubt of soul sur- 
vival, 55 ; his study of psychic 
forces, 55-6; role of psychic force 
little understood, 57; cause of 
rappings unknown, 58; psychic 
force is not from dead, 58; soul 
may exist after death without 
communicating, 58; table-tipping 
true but unexplained, 59; why 
darkness in seance-room is nec- 
essary, 59; what S. P. R. has 
accomplished, 60; final conclu- 
sions of, 60; at first Naples sit- 
tings, 75-7; description of trance 
state, 150-1 



Flaps, trick slate-writing with, 35 

Flottum, John, clairvoyant medi- 
um, 156-7 

Flour, table-tipping tests with, 51 

Flowers, apports of, n, 29; levi- 
tation of, 107; levitation of a pot 
of, 121; spirit, around sitter, 303 

Flournoy, Prof., 269 

Fluidic double, theory of, 113 

Foa, Carlo, at second Turin seances, 
95 

Foa, Pio, investigates psychic phe- 
nomena, 99 

Fogazzaro, Milan sittings with, 85 

Forces, all composed of vibrations, 
123-5 

Fourth dimension, Zollner biased 
by theory of, 38-9 

Fox, Kate, confesses fraud in rap- 
pings, 43; retracts confession, 43; 
observed by Crookes, 43-4 

Fox sisters, confess fraud, 14; 
discovery of their power, 40-1; 
investigated by townspeople, 41- 
2; spread of their rappings, 42-3; 
materialization with the, 213-14 

Fraud, an inadequate explanation, 
3; in all professional phenomena, 
14-19; does not explain Dialecti- 
cal Society phenomena, 29; whole- 
sale, in slate-writing, 32-3; difficul- 
ty of detecting, 37; probability of 
in Zollner phenomena, 38-40; Kate 
Fox's confession of, 43; retraction 
of confession, 43; doubtful in 
table-tipping, 48; lack of with 
Home, 63, 70-1 ; Eusapia's discov- 
ered by S. P. R., 82; Eusapia de- 
tected in at Genoa, 88-9; cunning 
of Eusapia's, 89; in a dynamom- 
eter register, 94; precautions 
against, Naples, 104-5; precautions 
against with Eusapia, 121 ; com- 
mon in spirit photography, 177-8; 
methods of, 177-9; an amusing, 179- 
80; in materialization, 212-13; does 
not explain all (Wallace), 222; in 
telepathy, 227-32; muscle-reading, 
231-2; can be excluded, 259; al- 



360 



INDEX 



leged, not apparent in Piper case, 
293-4; impossible in (Hyslop), 
294; efforts to obviate, in, 299- 
301 

Fraudulent phenomena in the Bible, 
346 

Fruit, apports of, 29 

Fullerton, Geo. S., explanation of 
Zollner phenomena, 39 

Funk, Dr. Isaac, comments on 
Crookes' table of vibrations, 126; 
quotes case of clairaudience, 162; 
fraud in spirit photography com- 
mon, 177; quotes case of self- 
projection, 186; Miss M.'s medi- 
umship, 274-6 

Future life, probability of, 6; Sir 
Oliver Lodge convinced of, 12; 
proved by S. P. R., 147; W. T. 
Stead believes in, 171; improbable 
(Richet), 198; proofs of survival 
weak, 198; ghosts not sufficient 
proof of, 2ii ; happiness of the, 
221; psychic research the only 
thing proving the, 223; impossible 
to assert regarding (Lang), 250; 
we deal only with prejudices con- 
cerning (Lang), 250-1; is there a? 
288; impossible ever to prove a, 
288-9; eminent scientific men be- 
lieve in a, 289; information re- 
garding, no proof, 316; happiness 
of assured (Tolstoi), 342; surety 
of, to early Christians, 343; made 
to seem doubtful by science, 344- 
5; difficulty of knowing about the, 
347; "spirits" may not have our 
memories or senses, 347; evidence 
of happiness in, 350-2 

Future life, see also Dead, the 



Galeotti, investigates Eusapia, 100; 
at Naples, 101 ; describes a start- 
ling materialization, no 

Garling, Mr., knocking heard by, 
208 

Garrison, Mr., case of premonition, 
252 



Genoa, sittings at, 86-91 

Gerosa, M., at Milan sittings, 78 

Ghosts, existence of, proved, 5; ap- 
parently proved by Census of 
Hallucinations, 173-6; photography 
of, 177-81; of the living, 181-7; 
one seen by Lord Brougham, 188- 
9; case of the officer in the Trans- 
vaal, 189-91; other cases, 191; the 
Morton "haunting," 191-7; what 
are ghosts, 201-5; wha^ ghosts are 
not, 201-3; true definition, 203; 
veridical after-images, 204; clothes 
of, 204; not all are subjective, 
205-11; proofs of reality of, 206-7; 
do animals see? 207-n; in the 
Bible, 346 

Ghosts, see also Materializations; 
Apparitions; Census of Halluci- 
nations; Dead, the 

Gilbert, Dr., case of telepathic hyp- 
nosis, 246-7 

Gigli, Prof., at first Naples sittings, 
76 

"Godfrey" case, self-projection rath- 
er than multiple telepathy, 322 

Goodrich-Freer, Miss, successful 
Piper seance with, 303 

Grave, violation of a, related clair- 
voyantly, 155-6 

Greene, R. I., home of Ansel 
Bourne, 136 

Gregory, Prof., case of clairvoyance 
with, 152-3 

Grocyn, in automatic script, 284 

Gurney, quotes case of self-projec- 
tion, 185-6; theory of veridical 
after-images, 204; proofs of ghosts, 
206-7; telepathic sending of tastes, 
242-3 

Guthrie, Malcolm, telepathic ex- 
periments, 234-7 

H 

Hair, levitation of a lock of, 100 
Hallucinations, see Ghosts, Appa- 
ritions, Census of Hallucinations, 
Materializations 



INDEX 



361 



Hammersmith, haunting of house 

at, 208-9 
Hands, materialized, 11; materiali- 
zation of, at first Naples sittings, 
77; astral, leave prints, 78; mate- 
rialization of a woman's, 92; start- 
ling materialization of arm and, 
106; materialization of big, black, 
107; materialized, feeling of, 106-7; 
astral, break mold, 118; materiali- 
zation of a hand in a globe of 
light, 213; materialization of a 
baby's, 216; character of a ma- 
terialized, 216-17 
Handkerchief unburned by coal, 70 
Happiness, of future life, 221; of fu- 
ture life assured (Tolstoi), 342; 
of future life, evidence of, 350-2 
Hart, Mr., message from a, 338-9 
Haunting of house at Hammer- 
smith, 208-9 
Haunting, see also Ghosts 
Head, materialization of a sinister, 
92; materialized, changes in size, 
94; materialization of a, 100; shape 
of Eusapia's, 103 
Healing, psychic, observed by Dia- 
lectical Society, 29; hypnotism in, 
166-7 
Heat phenomena observed by Dia- 
lectical Society, 29; Home's, 69- 
70 
Heavy bodies, telekinesis of, 48-9 
Herlitzka, Amadeo, at second Turin 

seances, 95 
Hindu fakir, rappings made by, 46 
Hodgson, Dr. Richard, detects 
Mme. Blavatsky, 14; criticizes 
Eusapia tests, 82; discovers her in 
fraud, 82; investigates Ansel 
Bourne case, 137; investigates 
"Watseka Wonder" case, 140; 
haunting case in Penn., 210; opin- 
ion of, on Piper case, 292; early in- 
vestigation of Mrs. Piper, 296-7; 
investigates her again, 303-4; ante- 
cedents of, 304; note on "George 
Pelham," 304-5; displaces "Impera- 
tor" controls, 311; convincing 



message noted by, 33S-9; difficul- 
ties in communication, 348-9 

"Hogan, Katrina," a control of 
Rancy Vennum, 144 

Home, D. D., lath message with, 
13-14; mediumship of, 61-71; born 
in Conn., 61 ; a convert to spirit- 
ism, 62; fascinating personality, 
62; seances with Crookes, 62; 
death, 62; lack of fraud with, 63; 
levitations with, 63-7; elongation 
with, 67-9; heat phenomena, 69- 
70; physical strain of trance on, 
151-2; materializations with, 215-17 

Horses see apparitions? 210 

Hot coals handled with impunity, 
69-70 

Houdin, Robert, endorses Alexis, 
24 

Hudson, Dr. Thomson Jay, oppo- 
nent of extreme spiritualism, 3; 
case of alleged multiple telepathy, 
321-2; experience as a percipient, 
235-6 

Human beings, levitation of, with 
Crookes, 11 

Huse, Bertha, case of, 157-61 

Husks, are ghosts merely? 203-4 

Hydesville, Fox sisters born at, 40 

Hyperesthesia, in trance, 150; theory 
of, in premonitions, 256-7 

Hypnosis, telepathic, 245-8; case of 
Mme. B., 246-7; anesthesia in- 
duced telepathically, 247-8; tele- 
pathic power increased under, 249 

Hypnotism and the subliminal self, 
164-5 

Hypnotism, see also Self-hypnotiza- 
tion 

Hyslop, James, criticism of Z611- 
ner's rope-tying, 39; endorses 
truth of telepathy, 224-5; defines 
automatism, 269; rules for medi- 
umistic experiments, 272; test sen- 
tence from father of, 279-80; opin- 
ion of, on Piper case, 293; fraud 
impossible in Piper case, 294; 
comment on "Phinuit" control, 
298; investigates Mrs. Piper, 309; 



362 



INDEX 



spiritualism not yet proved, 331; 
instances of continuance of per- 
sonality from sitting to sitting, 
333-4; examples of mistakes in 
messages, 337-8 

I 

Iceberg figure of subliminal self, 
133 

Identity, problem of, 196-7; prob 
lem of, 316-17; an example prov 
ing, 317; the difficulty of proving, 
3 1 1- 18; surest proof of, in trivial 
things, 318; examples of, 319-20 
strong proof of, in, 325-6; why 
messages seek to prove, 327-9 

Immateriality of an apparition, 
proofs of, 195-6 

Imoda, Dr., at first Turin sittings, 
91; at second Turin seances, 96 

"Imperator," control, 285; displaces 
"Pelham" in Piper case, 307-9; is 
displaced by Dr. Hodgson, 311 

Imposture, see Fraud 

Impressions, in clay, Eusapia makes, 
78-9; in paraffine, 118 

Intelligence, rappings governed by, 
46-7; behind automatic message, 
154 

Interference between controls, 335-6 

Involuntary muscular action, see 
Unconscious muscular action 



Jannacone, Prof., at first Turin 
seances, 91 

Jastrow, Prof., experiments with 
psychic force, 52-3 

Jeannette, case of the, 162 

Joncieres 1 , Victorin, musical rap- 
pings, 45 

Jona, Emmanuele, at Naples se- 
ances, 104 

Julia, Letters from, 318-19 



K 



Kellar, shows slate-writing tricks, 

23; and Eglinton, 24 
Kennedy, Dr. Harris, investigates 

Huse case, 160 
"King, John," Eusapia's "control," 

impressions resemble, 79 
"King, Katie," materialized clothes 

of, 215; famous case of, 217-20; 

proofs of materialization of, 218-20 
Kirk, Mr., self-projection of, 184-5 
Knots, tied in handkerchief, 26; 

untie themselves, 87; tied in cord, 

90-1 
Knot-tying, with Zollner, 38; Hys- 

lop's criticism of Zollner's, 39 
Knowledge, supernormal, see Super- 
normal knowledge 
Kobbe, Major, keeps appointment 

thru premonition, 253 



Jacolliot, rappings observed by, 46 
James, Professor William, a con- 
vert to spiritualism, 4; investi- 
gates Huse case, 160; opinion of, 
on Piper case, 292; early investi- 
gation of Mrs. Piper, 295-6; com- 
ment of "Phinuit" control, 298; 
psychic science has been con- 
temptuously disregarded, 312; ex- 
istence of the subliminal self 
proved, 312-13; instances of sub- 
liminal warning, 313-14; intoler- 
ance of science inexcusable, 314 
Janet, French spiritualist, 5; case of 
telepathic hypnosis, 246-7 



L., Lord, apparition of, 191 

Lake Shore & Mich. Southern R.R., 
remarkable case of premonition 
on, 254-5 

Lang, impossible to assert regard- 
ing future life, 250; we deal only 
with prejudices, 250-1; science 
should investigate psychic phe- 
nomena, 251; endorses Mrs. Piper, 
294 

Languages, medium unable to 
write in unknown, 326 

Lath, message with a, 13-14; tries 
to write message, 262-3 



INDEX 



363 



Lebanon, N. H., home of Mrs. 

Titus, 158 
Levitation, of a chair, 11; of a 
table, 11; of human beings, 11; 
registered on dynamometer, 13; of 
a card-plate, 26; observed by Dia- 
lectical Society, 28; with Zollner, 
38; complete, of tables, 50; with 
Home, 63-7; at first Naples sit- 
tings, 76-7; of tables photographed 
at Milan, 78; test of Aksakof, 84; 
at Genoa sittings, 86-7; remark- 
able, 90; and breaking to pieces 
of a table, 97; of various bodies, 
100; weight of medium increases 
during, 122; reality of (Wallace), 
222 
Life, is a dream (Tolstoi), 341; 
saved by premonition, 252-3; 254-5 
Light, sensitiveness to, 150; possi- 
bly fatal, 150; materialization of 
a hand in a globe of, 213 
Lights, see Luminous appearances 
Limoncelli, Prof., at first Naples 

sittings, 76 
Lindsay, Master of, levitations with 
Home, 66-7; elongation with 
Home, 67-9 
Livermore, Mary A., case of 

premonition, 252 
Livermore, Mr., materializations at 

house of, 214 
Living, apparitions of the, see Ap- 
paritions of the living 
Lodge, Mrs., remarkable message 

for, 302-3 
Lodge, Sir Oliver, believer in "oc- 
cult" phenomena, 4; convinced of 
future life, 72; tests Eusapia, 82; 
endorses truth of telepathy, 224; 
description of .telepathic experi- 
ments of, 234-7; telepathic experi- 
ments recorded by, 237-41; inves- 
tigates Piper case, 299-301; mes- 
sage regarding cousins of, 325 
Lombardi, investigates Eusapia, 100; - 

at Naples seances, 104 
Lombroso, at first Naples sittings, 
76; growing conversion to spirit- 



ualism, 77; at Milan sittings, 78; 
at Milan sittings, 85 ; at first Turin 
sittings, 91; scientific thoroness 
of, 103; radio-active theory, in; 
endorses psychic phenomena, 120- 
22; incident of a Venice seance, 
121 

London Dialectical Society, spirit- 
ualistic investigation of, 27-32 

Lubbock, Sir John, president of 
Dialectical Society, 27 

Luminous appearances, n; with 
Eusapia, 110-11; around Eusapia's 
"scar," in; around 'her fingers, 
xxi ; materialization of, 215-16 

M 

M., Miss, medium, 274-6 

Macalister, Prof., denounces Mrs. 
Piper, 301 

McAlpine, Mrs., case of, 167-8 

Magicians, see Prestidigitators 

Magnet, fraudulent slate-writing 
with, 35-7 

Mandolin, plays itself, 93; is played 
by a materialized hand, 93-4; 
plays itself, 107; synchronism in 
playing a, 113-15 

Manuscripts of Wm. S. Moses, 283-4 

Maris, M., at first Turin seances, 
91 

Mars, spirits from, 269 

Marvin, Dr., phenomena of table- 
tipping genuine, 48 

Maskelyn, J. N., condemns pro- 
fessional mediumship, 15 

"Masking" common fraud in spirit 
photography, 178 

Materialization, of a hand, 11; 
progress of a, 12; flimsy trickery 
of, 23; observed by Dialectical 
Society, 28; at first Naples sit- 
tings, 77; at Genoa sittings, 87-8; 
of shadowy appearances, 91 ; of a 
sinister head, 92; of a woman's 
hand, 92; struggle with a, 92-3; 
of a head which changes size, 94; 
of "Peppino," 100; startling, at 



364 



INDEX 



Naples, 106-10; detailed descrip- 
tion of a, 108-9; of hands, photo- 
graphed, 109; breaks photographic 
plate, 118; photography of, 177-81; 
of a picture, 179-80; discussion of, 
212-20; fraudulent, 212-13; cases of, 
with Eusapia, 213; of a hand in 
globe of light, 213; with the Fox 
sisters, 213-14; of clothes, 214-15; 
with D. D. Home, 215-17; ot 
luminous appearances, 215-16; of 
a baby's hand, 216; character of 
the materializations, 216-17; Katie 
King case, 217-20; in the Bible, 
346 

Mathematical proof of telepathy, 
243-5 

Maxwell, Dr. V., telekinesis noted 
by, 26; rappings noted by, 45; 
soul is reincarnated, 258; phenom- 
ena of psychical research very 
old, 258; beginning has now been 
made, 258; present wave of spirit- 
ualism, 259; good mediums few, 
259; fraud is excluded, 259; "what 
the force is I do not know," 260 

Mediumistic chain broken, 105 

Mediumistic communications, super- 
normal knowledge in, 279-82; im- 
provement in, 308 

Mediumistic experiments, rules for, 
272 

Mediumistic phenomena, typical, 
274-8; case of Miss B., 274-5; case 
of Dr. Z., 278-9 

Mediums, professional, not used by 
Dialectical Society, 30; first so- 
called, 42; rappings differ with 
each, 44-5; what mediums are, 
148; our duty regarding, 148; not 
sole factor in psychic phenomena, 
1 18-19; weight of, increases during 
levitation, 122; mediumship, 148; 
clairvoyant, 156-7; 158-61; good 
ones few, 259; supernormal knowl- 
edge displayed by, 295-6; unable 
to write in unknown languages, 
326; in the Bible, 346; rarity of, 



Mediumship, trance state in, 149- 
51; phenomena of, 261-87; reason 
for, 262; trial at message without, 
262-3; prerequisites 0^264; difficul- 
ty of, 265-6; message-bearing, 266- 
8; rules for, 272-3; Miss M.'s, 274- 
6; Miss A.'s, 276-8; of Wm. S. 
Moses, 282-7 

Memory, tenacious, of "Phinuit" 
control, 298-9; of "spirits," not 
ours, 347 

Messages, source of, 8; with lath, 
13-14; received by Dialectical So- 
ciety, 28; rappings give, 46-7; 
from the other world, 148; with 
planchet, 154; spirit, how made, 
261-2; by direct writing, 262-3; not 
easily sent, 265-6; message-bear- 
ing phenomena, 267-8; spirit, tests 
for, 315-16; from subliminal self, 
322-3; anagrams in, 330; come 
from subliminal self, 331-2; mis- 
takes and confusion in, argument 
from, 337-8; convincing, 338-9 

Metronome starts itself ticking, 87 

Meurice, telekinesis with, 26 

Milan, first Eusapia sittings at, 78; 
second sittings at, 85-6 

Mind-reading, see Telepathy 

Minerno-Murge, birthplace of Eu- 
sapia, 73 

Minutillo, Nicola, at Naples se- 
ances, 104 

Miracles, Brewer's Dictionary of, 
Home's exploits in, 64 

Miraculous disappearance of table, 
40 

Mistakes in messages, argument 
from, 337-8 

Mitchell, S. Wier, ghost reported 
by, 191 

Mooltan, case of clairaudience at 
siege of, 162-3 

Morbid phenomena of trance un- 
necessary, 151 

Morgan, Prof., table-tipping inci- 
dent of, 25; on Dialectical Society 
Committee, 27 

Morse code, message in, 13-14 



INDEX 



365 



Morselli, makes impression in clay, 
79; believes Eusapia genuine, 80; 
at Genoa sittings, 86 

Morton haunting, 191-7; story of the 
case, 191-5; proofs of immateri- 
ality of apparition, 195-6; identity 
of apparition, 196-7 

Moses, William Stainton, materia- 
lized hand with, 213; mediumship 
of, 282-7; his MSS., 283-4; auto- 
matic messages of, 285-6; genuine- 
ness of, 286-7; a proof of identity 
given by, 317 

Mosso, Prof., 95 

Motor automatism, phenomena of, 
139 

Motor automatism, see also Posses- 
sion; "Watseka Wonder"; Autom- 
atism 

Movement of heavy bodies, 11 

Mucchi at first Turin seances, 91; 
struggles with a materialization, 
92-3 

Mucilage pencils, slate-writing with, 
34 

Multiple telepathy, 321-2 

Murdered man discovered by raps, 
41 

Murdered woman, ghost of a, 204 

Muscle-reading, 231-2 

Muscles, hypnotic control of the, 
166 

Music hastens trance condition, 151 

Musical instruments play them- 
selves, 28 

Musical rappings, 45 

Myers, Frederic W. H., founder of 
S. P. R., 5; criticizes ultra-con- 
servatism, 19; tests Eusapia, 82; 
defines limits of spectrum, 124; 
compares our senses to the spec- 
trum, 125-6; standing of, 127; his 
Human Personality a master 
work, 128; theory of subliminal 
self, 128-31; facts proved by S. 
P. R., 147; (a) survival of soul, 
147; (b) existence of subliminal 
self, 147-8; (c) reality of telepathy, 
etc., 148; what a medium is, 148; 



our duty regarding mediumship, 
148; future methods of work, 148; 
Census of Hallucinations, 173; 
additional proof of ghosts, 176; 
quotes case of self-projection, 185- 
6; definition of ghosts, 201-3; evi- 
dence for "ecstasy," 225; telepa- 
thy a first step, 225-6; telepathy of 
tastes, 242-3; defines motor au- 
tomatism, 269-70; mediumship of 
Wm. S. Moses, 282-7; his MSS., 
283-4; opinion of, on Piper case, 
292-3; note on Salpetriere patients, 
329; spiritualism not a religious 
creed, 330; difficulty of communi- 
cating, 348; happiness of future 
life, 350-1; future of psychical re- 
search, 351-2 
Myers, Frederic W. H., see also 
Subliminal self 

N 

N-rays emitted by medium, 164 

Naples, Eusapia born in, 73; first 
sittings at, 75-7; second seances 
at, 101-18 

Norlenghi, Dr., at first Turin se- 
ances, 91 

Norristown, Pa., Ansel Bourne at, 
136-9 

Norton, Chas. Eliot, opinion of, on 
Piper case, 292 

Numbers, telepathy with, 243-5 



Objects, telepathy of thoughts of, 

237-8 
Obscenity repudiated by a spirit, 

121-2 
Obsession, see "Watseka Wonder," 

Automatism 
Occult Science in India, quoted, 46 
Ochorowicz tests Eusapia with 

Richet, 81; tests Eusapia for S. 

P. R., 82 
Oesel, Island of, disturbances on, 



366 



INDEX 



Omniscience, necessity of power of, 

in telepathic hypothesis, 327 
Organism, powers of the, 163-4 
Osier, Dr., and the astral life, 125 



Paintings by "spirits," 29 

Paladino, Eusapia, table-tipping 
common with, 51; birth, 73; hole 
in head, 73; first exhibits powers. 
73; appearance, 74; incident at St 
Petersburg, 74; lack of education 
74; taught by Damiani, 75; at 
tracts attention of Prof. Chiaia 
75 ; first Naples seances, 75-6: 
goes to Milan, 77-8; success of 
Milan seances, 78; makes impres 
sions in clay, 79; tested oy Richet, 
Si; tested by Richet and Ochoro 
wicz, 81; downfall of, in England 
82-4; doubts of her fraud, 84 
second Milan sittings, 85-6; Genoa 
sittings, 86-91; cunning of her 
trickery, 89; remarkable table levi 
tation with, 90; first Turin sittings, 
91-5; struggle with a materializa- 
tion, 92-3; materialized head with 
94; tampers with dynamometer. 
94-5; second Turin seances with 
95-8; investigated by men of sci 
ence, 100; scientific description of, 
103; is securely sealed to floor, 
no; startling materializations with 
108-10; externalization of sensi- 
bility with, 113; remarkable syn- 
chronism with, 113-15; education 
of astral members, 115-16; does 
she prove future life? 116-19; en- 
dorsed byLombroso, 120; radio-ac- 
tivity of, 164; materialization with, 
213 

Pallor in trance, 150 

Pansini, Dr., at Naples seances, 
104 

Pelham control, appearance of, in 
Piper case, 304-5 ; improvement 
shown in, 305-6; tests given by, 
306-7; displaced by "Imperator" 



controls, 307-9; good on names, 
336 
Pencil tries to write message, 262-3 
Pendulum set in motion, 26 
"Peppino," a materialization, 100 
Percipience, delayed, 321; definition 

of, 322-3 
Percipient in telepathic experi- 
ments, 234-5; can any one be a? 
235-6 
Perring, Dr., violation of a grave 

told by a, 155-6 
Personality, imitation of, in mes- 
sages? 339-40 
I Personality, see also "Dramatic play 

of personality" 
Perspiration in trance, 150 
Phantasms, see Ghosts, Apparitions, 

Materializations 
"Phinuit," control, 297; improbably 
genuine, 297-8; Dr. Hyslop's com- 
ment on, 298; Prof. James on, 
298-9; tenacious memory of, 298-9 
Photographic plate broken by a ma- 
terialization, 118 
Photographs, "spirit," 172; 177-81; 
probably fraudulent, 177-8; meth- 
ods of producing, 178-9; possibly 
genuine, 180-1 
Physical ordeal of trance, 151 
Physical phenomena of spiritualism, 

8 
Physiological changes in trance 

state, 150 
Piano plays itself, 107 
Picture "materializes," 179-80 
Pierce, Dr. W. J., spirit photogra- 
phy, 180-1 
Piper, Mrs. Leonora, improvement 
of trance state with, 151; case of 
automatism, 271; early seances of, 
281-2; importance of case of, 291; 
genuineness of, 291-2; testimony of 
Dr. Hodgson, 292; Prof. James, 
292; Chas. Eliot Norton, 292; 
Frederic Myers, 292-3; Dr. Hys- 
lop, 293; alleged fraud not appa- 
rent, 293-4; early phases of case 
°f> 295-9; Prof. James investigates, 



INDEX 



367 



295-6; Dr. Hodgson investigates, 
296-7; "Phinuit" control, 298-9; 
investigated in England, 299-304; 
efforts to obviate fraud, 299-301 ; 
unsatisfactory sittings, 301 ; re- 
markable message for Mrs. Lodge, 
302-3; successful sittings with. 
Miss Goodrich-Freer, 303; Dr. 
Hodgson investigates again, 303- 
4; appearance of "Pelham" con- 
trol, 304-7; Pelham displaced by 
"Imperator" controls, 307-9; im- 
provement in communications, 
308; Dr. Hyslop investigates, 309; 
examples of prophecy with, 309-11; 
trivial incidents in case of, 319- 
20; arguments for the telepathic 
hypothesis, 324-6; objections to the 
telepathic hypothesis, 326-33; phe- 
nomena of, telepathic, 328-9 
Planchet, message with, 154 
Plaster, impressions in, see Impres- 
sions in clay 
Podmore, Frank, warns against dog- 
matic denial, 17; endorses Home, 
63; Census of Hallucinations, 173; 
endorses Mrs. Piper, 294 
Poltergeist phenomena at Naples 
sittings, 77; spirits not necessary 
for, 116-19; at Naples, 106, 107-8 
Pomba, at first Turin sittings, 91 
Porro, Dr., endorses Eusapia, 80 
Possession in the Bible, 345 
Possession, see also "Watseka Won- 
der," Automatism 
Precognition observed by Dialecti- 
cal Society, 29; of a suicide, 168; 
of a telegram, 169-70; examples 
of in Piper case, 309-11; in the 
Bible, 345 
Precognition, see also Premonitions 
Prejudices, we deal only with 

(Lang), 250 
Premonitions, 252-7; examples of, 
252-4; remarkable Wyman case. 
254-5; what are premonitions? 256- 
7; telepathic theory, 256; theory 
of hyperesthesia, 256-7; theory of 
"spirits," 257 



Premonitions, see also Precognition 
Premonitory apparitions, 183-4 
Prestidigitation, often deceives, 16; 
testimony of, 24; an inadequate 
explanation, 25 
Prevision, definition, 7 
Prevision, see also Precognition 
Professional phenomena, fraudu- 
lent, 14-19 
Prophecy, see Precognition 
Psychic force, registered on dy- 
namometer, 13; Crookes' idea of, 
22; Dialectical Society assured of 
existence of, 32; Faraday's meas- 
urement of, 52; Jastrow's conclu- 
sions regarding, 52-3; Carrington's 
conclusions regarding, 53; Thury's 
theory regarding, 53-4; Flam- 
marion's study of, 55-6; role of, 
little understood, 57; does not 
seem to be from the dead, 58; 
genuine existence of, 60; is it 
radio-activity? 111-12; reality of, 
200; character of unknown (Max- 
well), 260 
Psychic phenomena, inadequately 
observed, 10; professional all 
fraudulent, 14-19; some genuine, 
18; not explained by prestidigi- 
tation, 25-7; science should in- 
vestigate, 251; not trivial, 289; 
have been contemptuously disre- 
garded, 312; intolerance of science 
regarding, inexcusable, 314; telep- 
athy not a proved explanation for, 
323-4 
Psychic phenomena, see also Psy- 
chical Research 
Psychic problem as yet far from 

settled, 351 
Psychical research, definition, 6; 
neglected by science, 19; future 
methods of work, 148; great recent 
progress in, 199; the only thing 
proving the future life, 223; very 
old subject (Maxwell), 258; a good 
beginning has been made, 258; 
future of, 351-2 



INDEX 



Psychical research, see also Spirit- 
ualism 

Psychode, Thury's psychic force, 
S3-4 

Psychology and psychical research, 
19 

Pulse, changes in, in trance, 150 



R., Major-General, case of, 162-3 
R., Miss, percipient in telepathic 

experiment, 237 
Radio-activity, is psychic energy? 

111-12 
Rappings, observed by Crookes, n; 
observed by Dialectical Society, 
27; genuine? 43-7; Kate Fox's con- 
fession of fraud, 43; retraction of 
confession, 43; Crookes' remarks 
on, 43-4; are peculiar to the Fox 
sisters, 40-3; discovery of their 
power, 40-1; spread of rappings, 
41-3; are different with each me- 
dium, 44-5; appear unexpectedly, 
45; musical rappings, 45; in a 
bronze vase of water, 46; transmit 
messages, 46 
"Rector," control, 285; 335-6 
Reid, definition of the self, 129 
Restaurants, rappings in, 45 
Revelations of a Spirit Medium, 

quoted, 17 
Reynolds, Mary, case of, 134 
Richet, Charles, a convert to spirit- 
ualism, 4; at Milan sittings, 78; 
tests Eusapia anew, 81; tests Eu- 
sapia with S. P. R., 82; quotes 
case of precognition, 169-70; sur- 
vival is improbable, 198; proofs' 
of survival weak, 198; great re- 
cent progress in psychical re- 
search, 199; scientific courage of 
Crookes, 199; reality of psychic 
force, 200; science the only solu- 
tion, 200; endorses Mrs. Piper, 
294 
Rigidity in trance state, 149 
Rings, slipped over table leg larger, 
38 



Roasenda, Dr. Joseph, at first Turin 
seances, 91 

Rochester, Fox sisters visit, 41 

Roff, Mary, alleged to possess 
Rancy Vennum, 140-6; a hysteric, 
145; addicted to excessive blood- 
letting, 145; remarkable clairvoy- 
ance of, 145-6 

Romanes, Dr. Geo. J., apparition 
seen by, 183 

Roses, spirit, around a sitter, 303 

Rostain, Chevalier, at second Turin 
seances, 96 

Rules for mediumistic experiments, 
272 

s 

St. Petersburg, incident with Eu- 
sapia at, 74 
"Sally," see Beauchamp, Miss, case 

of 
Salpetriere, patients of the, 329 
Sardou investigates psychic phe- 
nomena, 99 
Savage, Dr. Minot J., clairvoyant 
incident, 155; apparitions of the 
living are proved, 183; telepathic 
analogy of, 225; reason for medi- 
ums, 262; early seances of Mrs. 
Piper, 281-2 
Sayles, Ira, ghost seen by, 191 
Scales register levitation, 13 
Scar, Eusapia's, 73; luminosity 

around, 11 1 
Scarpa, Dr., at Naples seances, 104 
Scheibner, observed Zollner phe- 
nomena, 38; partially blind, 39 
Schiaparelli at Milan sittings, 78 
Science, psychical research neg- 
lected by, 19; attitude of, toward 
table-tipping, 54; the only solu- 
tion of the psychic problem, 200; 
cannot impose her conditions 
(Wallace), 222; should investigate 
psychic phenomena, 251; intoler- 
ance of, inexcusable, 314; has fos- 
tered materialism, 343-4; has made 
future life seem doubtful, 344-5; 
to the rescue of the Bible, 346-7 



INDEX 



369 



Scoffing, and table-tipping, 53 

Screen, broken, Zollner's incident 
of, 39-40; explained by Carring- 
ton, 40 

Sealed slates, reading, 35-7 

Seance-room, coldness of, registers 
on thermometer, 13; mental effect 
of, 20; darkness in, why necessary, 
59; cold breeze in, 92; medium- 
istic chain in, broken, 105 

Secondary personality, influence of, 
excluded, 273; in Piper case? 328-9 

Secretions, hypnotic control of the, 
166 

Selectiveness, necessity of power of, 
in telepathic hypothesis, 327 

Self, old definition of the, 129; dif- 
ficulties of, 130 

Self, see also Subliminal self 

Self-hypnotization, improbability of, 

12 

Self-projection, definition, 7; possi- 
bility of, 113; 126; 184-7; case of 
Mr. Kirk, 184-5; case of the Misses 
Verity, 185-6; man's astral body 
travels many miles, 186 

Sensation, within narrow limits, 
125-6 

Senses of "spirits," not ours, 347 

Sensibility, externalization of, with 
Eusapia, 113 

Sensitiveness, to light, in trance, 
150; increased, in trance, 150 

Seybert Commission, 33 

Shaker Bridge, scene of Huse case, 
158-61 

Sidgwick, Mrs., endorses Mrs. 
Piper, 294; note by on haunting, 
209 

Sidgwick, Prof., founder of S. P. 
R., 5; Census of Hallucinations, 
173; experiments with telepathy, 
244 

Siemiradski tests Eusapia, 81 

Signals, messages by, 28; rappings 
in, 46-7 

Singsaas, Norway, home of John 
Flottum, 156 



Size, changes in, in a materialized 
head, 94 

Skeptic pinned to wall by table, 26 

Skepticism, dangers of, 3 

Skirving, Mr., case of premonition, 
252 

Slade, endorsed by Bellachini, 25; 
investigated by Seybert Commis- 
sion, 33; Zollner phenomena, 37" 
40 

Slate-writing, wholesale fraud in, 
32-3; definition, 33; Seybert Com- 
mission investigates, 33; fraudu- 
lent methods, 33-7; with mucilage 
pencils, 34; with double slates, 
34-5; with trick flaps, 35; with 
magnet, 35-7; with dummy book, 
35; difficulty of detecting fraudu- 
lent, 37; with Zollner, 38 

Sleight-of-hand, see Prestidigitation 

Smith, Mile., medium, 269; continu- 
ance of personalities in case of, 
334-5 

Smoked paper, astral handprints on, 
78 

Society for Psychical Research, aim 
of, 4; proves professional medium- 
ship fraudulent, 15; what it has 
accomplished, 60; exposes Eusa- 
pia, 82-4; takes a Census of Hal- 
lucinations, 173; investigation of 
telepathy, 226-7; description of 
facts proved by the, 147; (a) sur- 
vival of soul, 147; (b) existence 
of subliminal self, 147-8; (c) reali- 
ty of telepathy, etc., 148; telepath- 
ic experiments, 234-7; investi- 
gates Mrs. Piper, 296-7; investi- 
gates Mrs. Piper in England, 299- 

304 
Soldier, spirit of, identifies himself, 

3i7 
Soul is in process of reincarnation 

(Maxwell), 258 
Soul, see also Future life; Dead, 

the; Subliminal self 
Speer, Dr. Stanhope T., quotes case 

of materialization, 213 



370 



INDEX 



"Spirit" photography, see Photo- 
graphs of spirits 

Spiritistic hypothesis, automatic 
writing, 323-4; further arguments 
for. 33 1 ; caution of spiritists, 
331-2; argument from "dramatic 
play of personality," 332-40; con- 
tinuance of incidents from sitting 
to sitting, 333-5; interference be- 
tween controls, 335-6; character of 
mistakes and confusion, 337-8; 
convincing message in favor of, 
33S-9; argument from change in 
communicators, 339-40; compared 
with telepathic hypothesis, 340 

"Spirits" surround us in the air, 
99; repudiate obscenity, 121-2; tell 
of distant events, 155; give premo- 
nitions? 257; how would they com- 
municate? 261-2; subliminal self in 
harmony with, 264; from Mars, 
269; two, struggle for control, 271; 
have they our memories and 
senses? 347 

Spirits, see also Discarnate spirits 

Spiritualism, proved, 4; proves fu- 
ture life, 6; founding of, 41; early 
spread of, 42-3; present wave of, 
259; vs. telepathy, 315-40; caution 
necessary in, 332 

Spiritualism, see also Psychical Re- 
search 

Statuette, telekinesis of, 26 

Stead, William T., investigates 
psychic phenomena, 99; believes 
in future life, 171 ; communica- 
tion with dead possible, 171; hears 
from a dead friend, 172; letters 
from Julia, 318-19 

Stewart, Prof. Balfour, president of 
S. P. R., 5; experiments with 
telepathy, 245 

Stigmatization, 166 

Storie, case of clairvoyance, 161; an 
apparition at death, 191 

Struggle with a materialization, 92-3 

Stubbornness of tables, 51 

Subconscious self, see Subliminal 
self 



Subliminal self, hypothesis of, 127- 
33; iceberg figure of, 133; exist- 
ence of, proved by S. P. R., 147- 
8; and hypnotism, 164-5; is telepa- 
thy a power of? 248-9; relation to 
mediumship, 264; existence of 
proved (James), 312-13; instances 
of warning by the, 313-14; imi- 
tative powers of, 320; messages 
from, 322-3; messages come from, 
331-2; does it imitate change in 
communicators? 339-40 

Suggestion, telepathic, 245-8; case of 
Mme. B., 246-7; anesthesia induced 
telepathically, 247-S 

Suicide, precognition of a, 168 

Sully-Prudhomme endorses Eusapia, 
79 

Supernatural, definition of the, 124- 
5; scientific attitude changing to- 
ward, 126 

Supernormal knowledge in medium- 
istic communications, 279-82; in- 
stances of, 295-6; 302-3; actions ob- 
served at a distance, 306-7; pre- 
cognition in Piper case, 309-11 

Survival after death, see Future 
life 

Swedenborg, case of automatism, 
271 

Synchronism noticed with Eusapia, 
"3-15 

Syracuse, spread of spiritualism to, 
42 

T 

Table, levitation of, with Crookes, 
11; pins skeptic to wall, 25; rings 
slipped over leg of larger, 38; 
miraculous disappearance of, 40; 
levitation, remarkable, 90; breaks 
itself to pieces, 97; weight of 
added to mediums, 122; trick, for 
"mind-reading," 230-1 ; levitated at 
Naples sittings, 76-7; photographs 
of levitated, 78; levitated at Genoa 
sittings, 86-7 

Table-tipping, observed by Dialecti- 
cal Society, 31; phenomena of, 



INDEX 



371 



47-54; definition of, 47; existence 
of incontestable, 48-9; Carrington, 
Flammarion, Marvin, Barrett, 
Crookes, quoted affirmatively, 48-9; 
conclusive experiment of Dialecti- 
cal Society, 49; why tables? 50; 
complete levitation, 50; researches 
of De Gasparin on, 51; tests with 
flour, 51; occasional stubborn- 
ness in, 51; with Eusapia, 51; not 
essential to proof of future life, 
52; explanation of, 52-3; Jastrow's 
experiments, 52-3; Thury's theory, 
53-4 ; present attitude of science 
regarding, 54 

Tamlin, Mrs., medium, 42 

Tastes, telepathic sending of, 242-3 

Telegram, precognition of a, 169-70 

Telegraphy, spirit, 13-14 

Telekinesis, definition, 7; of heavy 
bodies, 11; of a pendulum, 26; of 
a statuette, 27; observed by Dia- 
lectical Society, 28; examples of, 
31; of heavy bodies, 48-50; true 
(Wallace), 221 

Telekinesis, see also Table-tipping, 
Levitation, Apports 

Telepathic hypothesis, arguments 
for, 324-6; objections to, 326-33; 
compared with spiritistic hypothe- 
sis, 340 

Telepathy, reality of, proved, 5; defi- 
nition, 7; proved by S. P. R., 148; 
224-249; now an established fact, 
224; Lodge endorses truth of, 224; 
Hyslop endorses, 224-5; analogy of 
Dr. Savage, 225; evidence for 
ecstasy, 225; a first step, 225-6; 
proved by S. P. R., 226-7; fraudu- 
lent, 227-32; "mind-reading," 227-8; 
methods, 228-31; muscle-reading, 
231-2; we know little about, 232; 
spontaneous, 232-3; example of, 
233; experiments of S. P. R., 234-7; 
percipient in, 234; can any one be 
a percipient? 235-6; agents in, 
2 36-7; proof of, 237-45; objects, 
237-8; drawings, 239-42; of double 
impression, 240-2; of tastes, 242-3; 



mathematical proof of, 243-5; tele 
pathic hypnosis and suggestion 
245-8; anesthesia induced tele 
pathically, 247-8; wonderful en- 
largement of, 248; what is telepa- 
thy? 248-9; premonitions, 252-4 
remarkable Wyman case, 254-5 
telepathic theory of premonitions 
256; vs. spiritualism, 315-40; hy- 
pothesis of, in Piper case, 320 
enlargement of conception of 
321-2; delayed percipience, 321 
multiple telepathy, 321-2; not a 
proved explanation for all psychic 
phenomena, 323-4 

Test sentence from spirits, 279-82 

Tests given by "George Pelham," 
306-7; for spirit messages, 315-16; 
sealed letter, 316 

"Theophilus," control, 2S5. 

Theosophical Society, 14 

Thermometer, registers psychic 
coldness, 13 

Thomson, Sir Wm., quoted, 19 

Thoulet, Prof., case of precognition, 
169-70 

Threshold of consciousness, 131 

Thury, psychic force theory of, 53-4 

Titus, Mrs., clairvoyant medium, 
158-61 

Tolstoi, Count, our life is a dream, 
341 ; death a sure and happy 
awakening, 342 

Torpor, trance state, 151 

Train-wreck, life saved in, by pre- 
monition, 252; prevented by pre- 
monition, 254-5 

Trance, morbid phenomena of, un- 
necessary, 151 ; Mrs. Piper's, 293 

Trance-speaking, observed by Dia- 
lectical Society, 29 

Trance state, description of, 149-51 

Transvaal, ghost of officer in, 189-91 

Trivial things, surest proof of 
identity is in, 318; examples of, 
319-20; strong proof in, when re- 
membered, 325-6 

Turin, first seances at, 91-5; second 
seances at, 95-8 



m% 



INDEX 



U 

Unconscious mental action, influ- 
ence of, excluded, 273 

Unconscious muscular action, an 
explanation of table-tipping, 52 



Varley, on Dialectical Society Com- 
mittee, 27 

Vase, rappings in a, 46 

Venice, incident of a seance at, 121 

Vennum, Rancy, see "Watseka 
Wonder" 

Venzano, at Genoa sittings, 86 

Verdun, Count, at second Turin 
seances, 96 

Veridical after-images, 204 

Verity, self-projection case of the 
Misses, 185-6 

Vibrations, all force composed of, 
123-5; body composed of, 126 

Violation of a grave, related clair- 
voyantly, 155-6 

Visions in crystals, see Crystal gaz- 
ing 

Vizioli, Prof., at first Naples sit- 
tings, 76 

Voices in the air, 29; carried many 
miles, 161-3 

Von Schrenck-Notzing, tests Eusa- 
pia, 81 

w 

Wallace, Alfred Russell, accepts 
spiritualism, 3; facts of spiritual- 
ism incontestable, 17; Dialectical 
Society Committee, 27; cases of 
animals seeing apparitions, 207-11; 
note on cases of apparitions, 210- 
n; the dead are "alive" still, 221; 
happiness of future life, 221 ; tele- 



chemical phenomena, 222; fraud 
does not explain, 222; science can- 
not impose her conditions, 222; 
laws of evidence, 222-3; psychic 
research only thing proving future 
life, 223; an extreme spiritualist, 
332 

Water, rappings in a vase of, 46 

"Watseka Wonder," case of the, 
140-6; tests made with, 143; earlier 
controls of the, 144; later life of, 
144; doubts cast on story of, 144-5 

Weber, observed Zollner phenom 
ena, 38; an incompetent witness 
39 

Weight, of medium, increases dur- 
ing levitation, 122 

Wills, Rev. J. T., spirit photog 
raphy, 180-1 

Wreck, life saved in, by premoni 
tion, 252-3; prevented by premo- 
nition, 254-5 

Writing, message by direct, 262-3 

W'yllie, Edmund, photographing 
medium, 180-1 

Wyman, Wm. H., remarkable case 
of premonition, 254-5 

Wynne, Captain, levitations with 
Home, 66-7 



X., Miss, medium, 279-80 
X., Felida, case of, 135 



Z., Dr., "spirit" physician, 278-9 
Zollner phenomena, probably fraud- 
ulent, 38; character of, 38; reasons 
against, 38-9; criticism of rope- 
tying, 39; broken screen incident, 
39-40; miraculous disappearance of 



kinesis, apports, levitation, 221-2; table, 



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